THE MIDDLE ROAD TO FITNESS
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| Runners starting out for the 1 mile road race at the Fast Days of Summer in Kelowna, British Columbia. Most of these runners will probably start out this race at their “Middle Road” fitness and will be working at their “High Road” closer to the finish line. |
I have posted before on the LOW ROAD to fitness with aerobic workouts and the HIGH ROAD with high intensity workouts. So there has to be a middle road which comes in between to build fitness, right? In the middle road, you step up the intensity from an aerobic workout. So rather than being able to have a full conversation with a training partner like with aerobic training, only short sentences can be spoken in the middle road. As coaches describe, this change in breathing pattern reflects that you are working at a “comfortably hard” level. The time frame for working at a comfortably hard level falls somewhere between one to four hour range. And compared to aerobic conditioning, while the number of calories burned remains about the same in both low and middle road workouts, a higher percentage of carbohydrates is used in the middle road. And your blood gets more acidic in the middle road, needing extra time to recover.
If your goal is to maintain a healthy lifestyle and you find yourself only able to speak in short sentences on perhaps a bike ride uphill or on a swim, this is an indicator that you are likely in the middle road and engaging in vigorous exercise. National fitness guidelines recommend 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous cardio per week. So there are options for the healthy exerciser: 1) you can continue to exercise vigorously in the middle road and need extra time to recover afterwards or 2) you can slow down and get back to the low road.
On the other hand, if you are an endurance athlete wanting to do well in races, training and practicing in the middle road is very important. Other than events like ultramarathons and Ironmans, it is likely that the pace for your race will be somewhere in the middle road. Using running as an example, the middle road includes race paces from 10K to marathon distances (i.e., roughly the one to four hour range). So in training for a key race, runners will often do workouts that include spending time at race pace. For instance, a runner training for a half marathon might spend 20 minutes at their half marathon goal pace during a workout. This kind of training in the middle road gets the body efficient at processing lactate that race conditions will bring.
In addition, I have posted before on TEMPO and CRUISE INTERVAL runs. These runs are two examples of middle road workouts. A tempo workout lasts for at least 20 minutes. Running coach Jack Daniels, said of tempo work, "Ideally, a tempo run is nothing more than a steady 20-minute run at threshold pace. Subjectively, the intensity of effort associated with threshold pace running is comfortably hard. Again, your effort should be one that you could maintain for about an hour in a race."
The cruise interval workout tends to be longer as short breaks are added. On this workout, Coach Daniels said, “The great advantage of the brief recoveries is that blood-lactate levels remain fairly constant, and the runner experiences threshold effort throughout the entire training session, which can last a fair bit longer than could be accomplished with a steady tempo run at threshold pace.”
While running coaches discuss the benefits of these workouts - like improved endurance and lactate clearing ability - it is worth mentioning that coaches in other endurance sports, like swimming, use these types of middle road workouts in their training programs as well.
So no matter what fitness goal and/or endurance sport, the middle road means that you are working vigorously and will need extra time to recover afterwards; and, for endurance athletes, middle road workouts help you get ready for an upcoming race.
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Experiment of One Coaching covers topics ranging from running, strength training, health & wellness, sports nutrition to travel. I usually post once or twice a month. If you have a question about any of these topics you would like me to address, send it to: info@experiment1coaching.com
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