Why you can’t hold the race pace (and how to fix it）
Hi guys, how are you doing today?
The topic today is, why you can’t hold your goal race pace and how to fix it.
Roughly speaking, there are only three reasons why you can’t hold the race pace.
First, because your body has too many protons.
Second, because your muscles’ endurance ability hits the limit.
Third, you started running at too fast pace for your ability.
Let me explain more details step by step.
First, we use two types of engines during running.
First one is called aerobic metabolism and second one is called anaerobic metabolism. We usually use only aerobic metabolism because aerobic metabolism does not make any poisons.
What are poisons? Let me define it in a very simple way here. Anything which harms our bodies is poison. Plain and simple.
Exactly speaking, aerobic metabolism also makes a poison, namely carbon dioxide. But carbon dioxide goes away immediately by exhaling.
So, practically speaking, aerobic metabolism is clean energy. It doesn’t make any poisons in our bodies. While when we use anerobic metabolism, poisons, namely protons are accumulated in our body. That is the biggest limiter of our performance. Just remember that the more protons are accumulated in your body, the slower you are forced to run.
And the more anerobic metabolism your body uses, the more protons are accumulated in your body. Which means, the more your body uses anaerobic metabolism in your body, the slower you are forced to run.
However, here’s the question. Why does your body use anerobic metabolism nevertheless our body doesn’t use anerobic metabolism during normal life?
The reason is very simple. It’s because the faster we run, the more energy we need at a given time. And at a certain point where our aerobic metabolism gets closer to its limit, our body starts using anaerobic metabolism. This point is called anaerobic threshold and this point is very close to your upper limit of your moderate run pace.
In a sense, moderate run is the fastest pace you can handle as a daily routine or normal life activity. Once it gets faster than that, your body uses anerobic metabolism, in other words, your body starts using emergency engine.
And basically, all your race pace is faster than this point. So, during race, your body uses anaerobic metabolism unless the limited factor of your performance is something different like your muscle fatigue or lack of glycogen.
During race, more and more protons are produced and accumulated in our bodies. What we should understand here is, the reason why we use anaerobic metabolism is, to supply more energy for that aerobic metabolism cannot produce enough. In other words, our aerobic metabolism is not good enough.
Let us make a simple thought experiment.
Let’s say my anaerobic threshold is 3:40/km pace, in other words, once I run faster than 3:40/km, then my body starts using anaerobic metabolism. And your anaerobic threshold is 3:10/km. And we both run 2:50/km pace.
2:50/km pace is 50 seconds per kilometer faster than my anaerobic threshold, in other words, my anaerobic metabolism needs to produce energy for running 50 seconds per kilometer faster than the anerobic threshold pace.
While your anaerobic metabolism needs to produce more energy only for running 20 seconds per kilometer faster than your anerobic threshold pace.
In every minute, much more protons are accumulated in my body than your body. And 8 minutes after starting, my body cannot keep the same pace anymore because of too much protons.
But if it is 10,000m race, I still have 7km to go. The only way that I reach the goal line is running dramatically slower to clean protons in my body.
If I run slower, I need less energy at a minute and that’s why I can use more oxygen to neutralize protons instead of using oxygen to produce energy. Protons can be neutralized by connecting with oxygen. This is also the reason why you better do cooling down after intense workouts.
While in your body, although the longer you run, the more protons are accumulated, you still have enough deserves. It doesn’t limit your performance. You can sustain the pace until 10,000m and probably still have reserves. Probably you can run 10 more kilometers.
The difference between both parties is the aerobic capacity.
When both of us in this thought experiment run at 2:50/km pace, my aerobic metabolism can produce much less energy than your aerobic metabolism to sustain 2:50/km pace. As a result, my body uses more anerobic metabolism and as a result, more protons are accumulated in my body than in your body.
And those more protons inhibit my metabolism and so that I can not produce enough energy at a minute to sustain 2:50/km pace.
This is the reason why the distance we can sustain 2:50/km pace is so much different.
And then what if we run the same distance, for example 10km?
If I go out with 2:50/km pace, I cannot sustain that pace till 10km because I need to use anerobic metabolism so much to sustain that pace and as a result protons are accumulated too much very soon because my aerobic metabolism produces less energy than yours. So, I need to start with 3:00/km pace if I want to run 10km at even pace.
While you can run faster than 2:50/km pace because you still had reserves when you ran 10km at 2:50/km pace because your aerobic metabolism can produce much more energy than mine and as a result, you don’t need to use your anaerobic metabolism much to sustain 2:50/km pace.
So, probably you can start with 2:40/km pace and sustain that pace up to 10km. Meaning, you are able to run 26:40 in 10km because your aerobic capacity.
If the distance is the same, you can run faster if your aerobic capacity is great because you are able to run faster when you use the same amount of anaerobic metabolism with other competitors.
If the pace is the same, you can sustain the same pace longer because your aerobic capacity is great and that’s why you use much less anaerobic metabolism when the pace is same with other competitors.
From 800m to full marathon, the mechanism is the almost same. The biggest determination factor is aerobic capacity, namely how much energy your aerobic metabolism can produce in a minute.
From 800m to full marathon, the biggest reason why you can’t hold a pace is because your aerobic capacity is too bad for the pace.
The second reason is, your muscle endurance ability hits the limit before you cross over the finish line.
First of all, your muscles cannot move without energy. So, the biggest reason why your leg muscles cannot move anymore is because your aerobic metabolism cannot enough energy, in other words, because of the first reason.
However, in some cases, your leg muscles do not move anymore nevertheless your metabolism produces enough energy for your leg muscles.
Our muscles need to loosen up enough to contract again. Our muscles repeat to loosen up and contract over and over again when we are running. And when our legs make the power is when the muscle fibers get contracted.
However, our muscles need to loosen up enough to contract again. So, loosening up is also a kind of important ability. The question here is, how our muscles loosen up?
I mean, what is the difference between getting tighter and tighter muscles during running and can keep going with the same rhythms and pace?
The answer is, whether your muscles can produce enough energy to loosen up. This sounds a little bit strange and interesting, right?
You go for relaxing mode when you feel that your energy runs out. But your muscles go into intense state when your muscles cannot produce energy to stay relaxed.
More exactly speaking, when your muscles contract, calcium ions should go into muscle fibers from sarcoplasmic reticulum. And then it is easy to move calcium ions from sarcoplasmic reticulum into muscle fibers because there are 10,000 times more calcium ions in sarcoplasmic reticulum than in muscle fibers.
By osmotic pressure and electric potential energy, it is very easy to move calcium ions into muscle fibers.
However, the opposite is so difficult. You need energy and that energy is produced by aerobic metabolism and anaerobic metabolism.
So, after all, you need to improve aerobic metabolism to loosen your muscles up too.
The third reason why you cannot hold the race pace is, simply you started out at too fast pace.
This is a relative matter. Not an absolute matter.
No matter how great you are, if you go out too fast for your ability and the race distance, you are forced to slow down sooner or later. There’s no exception. Even if you are the World record holder, it’s the same. No difference at all.
And vice versa. With that being said, no matter how slow you are, if you start out at enough slow pace, you can reach the finish line without getting slower.
How to fix it?
Third factor is, of course, the easiest one. You start running at slower pace. This is it.
However, in this case you cannot run faster. You cannot improve your race time.
Then, how can you run faster?
Improving your aerobic capacity is the most important thing.
And how?
By improving your moderate volume and moderate intensity.
In other words, you increase your total volume of running step by step without using force.
And you repeat moderate runs very frequently and wait for that your body adapts to it and the pace gets faster naturally. Be patient.
The simplest way is doing relatively long easy runs and relatively short moderate run by turns. And probably once a week light short interval or short Fartlek like 20x1 minute fast and 1 minute slow.
Once you reach at a higher level, it is also a good idea to do long intervals like 10x1km with 2 minutes recovery at your 10,000m goal race pace or your 10,000m subjective race pace.
That’s it folks.
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