A couple thoughts:

First, that's a fair bit of high-intensity/VO2 max workouts. If your intent is to lower VLamax, it may be helpful to limit the amount of time you spend above threshold. Ultimately your goal is actually to de-train your anaerobic system to increase the capacity of your aerobic system. (old schoolers might think of this as training your fast twitch fibres to work as slow twitch)

Second, curious as to which INSCYD test(s) you did to get this data. Was it just the running/lactate version? Was it administered by a coach? Because I also wonder about the suggestion that you train a lot at FatMAX to increase your FatMAX. I personally am totally on board with lots of slow running, just curious about where this specific suggestion came from.

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George Dedopoulos | @geodee | geodee.com | Team Atomica | Toronto Triathlon Club

It was a treadmill lactate test and it was performed at a coaching company. I have not received detailed follow up advice since I was cheap and just took them up on a test promotion....not the smartest thing for me to do but who knows what comes out of it in the end....

Hello

really interesting

First, few questions :

what are you training for ? Sprint or IM ?
what do you call "FatMax mediocre" ? FatMax Power significantly < 53% Power at VO2 or <73% FTP ?

Given the training you describe, mediocre FatMax is not a surprise.

In order to increase it, yes you need to significantly increase your time BELOW FatMax (around 65% of FTP)

It is easy when biking. Look at Cam Wurf Strava and see the amount of biking at this level of power (for reference, Cam FTP around 380w), especially in winter. Personally I do 4h ride at this level, it help. It is called "Build phase" :-)

Running "that slow" is not easy if you are not use, but it is very important. One more reference :
https://www.podiumrunner.com/...y-long-runs-be_60984

One more reference : remember the discussions with Arild Tveiten in this form ?
Arild train his 3 main athletes (ITU stars, 70.3 World Champ, 70.3 best world perfs) mostly BELOW FatMax, at very low lactate level (around 1), to develop aerobic capacity and fat consumption (80% of time). The rest at sweetspot (20%). Very little FTP.
As you not train 30h a week, 70 / 30 is probably better for you.

For most AG, IM70.3 race pace is below sweetspot, anyway.

This guy also : https://www.strava.com/activities/2892465835

lots and lots and lots of hours below FatMax....

Yes, doing long gravel bike races.... but also recently World Record for Individual Pursuit (4km, 4mn05 seconds), and in the US Team Pursuit....

Wish my easy ride effort for 2 hours and 43 minutes with 1857 feet of elevation at 236 watts.

 
https://www.strava.com/.../2857845397/overview

Right after the Track World Cup, he is travelling around GB by bike, accumulating hours and hours below FatMax. Same as he do in home Arkansas...

He is building massive aerobic capacity.
Then, few months before the Olympic, he will do the specific work on top of that. Specific work for IP/TP being very different from IM specific, of course.

Still, it is also based mostly on "below FatMax" effort.... interesting, isn'it ?

Where does he talk about riding below fat max?

He don't talk about it, he just do that. A lot. Most of his 30h+ per week.

You could argue that if you have 30+ hours a week to train, then spending a ton of time "easy" is a good thing. But if you only have 10 or 15, maybe that isn't the best strategy

nothing wrong with running slow. you should be running more if you want to see more results. consistency. 35-40 miles per week. slow is fine. build a base and you will get faster.

You are correct. But this has nothing to do with fatmax...

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Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
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From what I understand of the testing the OP did, the fat max he was given can roughly be correlated to LT1. I was just trying to say there's benefits to training at or below that threshold

question: were you serious about your run/walk training? I was trying to be funny thinking it was pink for sure, but now that I re-read your post I think my reply came across like me being a douchebag....
Uli

I think you just need to increase your volume until you are back to a high enough workload to improve. With that high of a vlamax, try to refrain from doing short intervals and if you do need some intensity, go longer on short rest. I'm in the same boat as you roughly but started earlier. Last winter staying under 140 bpm had me around 8m/mile, now im about 10 beats lower.

It will take some patience though as you kind of reset your glycolytic system. Doing much of your intensity as middle intensity tempo can speed up the process, but favor duration over higher pace. (Think sweet spot)

Yup. Most recovery runs are done at 4:1 run:walk and long runs are done at 9:1. The effectiveness of my recovery runs is much greater and I recover significantly quicker from long runs. And I run a mid 16 5k off the bike and right around 34 for a 10k off the bike. Do your easy work easy, so when it's time to go hard you can actually go hard, otherwise you just end up half-assing every workout

Oh no doubt, but not because of why he thinks there is

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Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
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Thanks for your input with those times you clearly seem to to it right.....

Hey oftentimes when I read your posts here I like them a lot, with these ones, I just don't get it. If you agree that there is a benefit in running at an easy pace, isn't that then in line of what my thoughts were?

What are you trying to accomplish?

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Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
Aerodynamic Retul Bike Fitting

“You are experiencing the criminal coverup of a foreign backed fascist hostile takeover of a mafia shakedown of an authoritarian religious slow motion coup. Persuade people to vote for Democracy.”

What are you trying to accomplish?[/quote]
I would like to get faster while burning less sugar. My goal races are 70.3s and if I interpret my test results correctly my engine is big enough (for now) but it uses the wrong kind of fuel.....

These goals are mutually exclusive.

Unless you're talking about bike fits, swim drafting, or some other free speed. Some truisms:

1. The faster you go, the harder it gets.

2. It doesn't get easier, you just go faster.

3. Less is less. More is more. More more is morer.

You're interpreting the information from your test differently than I would. Just take to heart that you have a relatively high VO2 max and go forth in the world with that knowledge giving you confidence that you can and will achieve your goals. Train mostly easy, sometimes hard, consistently, frequently, consistently frequent, frequently consistent and you'll be fine.

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Eric Reid AeroFit | Instagram Portfolio
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With your open 5k ability the only time you 'might' ever run for 90 minutes at 9:30/mile is if you are doing mega run mileage weeks (very durable runner - probably in the midst of training for an ultra) and the 90' run is extra easy mileage..even there I'm having a hard time determining where this run would go in such a week.

You should though have no problem running 9:30/mile for short easy runs - you should feel like you are doing nothing on them and seem boring easy - an experienced athlete strives for this feeling on a day they want to go really easy.

There is nothing magical going to happen if you do long runs on fresh legs at 9:30/mile other than wasting time you could use to put a proper stimulus on yourself.

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Ruble Triathlon Coaching Average of 30 coached PR's per year
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I just saw this thread. You have a very high VLamax for an endurance athlete. INSCYD uses software that helps pinpoint each capacity, VLAmax and VO2max. It can help pinpoint the levels desirable to optimize a performance in a specific race such as a 10k run or an Ironman. The key is how to train to get a desirable Vlamax. INSCYD should have recommendations to do this.

Lowering Vlamax should make you faster at longer events. It has nothing to do with increasing your VO2max but that is always desirable. Lowering Vlamax will enable you to use more of your aerobic capacity (VO2max) whatever it currently is.

Jan Olbrecht wrote a book on training, called the Science of Winning. http://bit.ly/2aKNf6e which is mainly about swimming.

In it VLAmax is explained in detail as well as ways to train it up or down. Swimmers in short races usually want it high but triathletes usually want it much lower. While the book is on swimming Olbrecht has advised endurance athletes including winners at Kona and Olympic gold medals in distance swimming as well as the world one hour cycling champion. http://bit.ly/2HcsaU4

I had not heard any specific workouts scheduled at Fatmax as being specifically better than others. Workouts close to the threshold are often used to reduce VLAmax but mainly a couple weeks before an important race. Olbrecht advises to be careful with these workouts as they could also reduce VO2max and be counter productive

I would also search for Sebastian Weber on the web or this website. He is the founder of INSCYD and has commented here occasionally.

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Jerry Cosgrove

Sports Resource Group
http://www.lactate.com
https://twitter.com/@LactatedotCom

I think your view of the problem is in many ways too simplistic. The fuel you are using is one dimension. The size of your engine is another. But additional dimensions with equal or greater importance are your running economy and the endurance/fatigue resistance of your muscles. Right now you have a big engine that tends to burn sugar, likely inefficiently* (poor economy) and it can't run for very long before it starts wearing out or underperforming (poor endurance). If you could go in and tweak it so you just switched to burning fat rather than sugar you would still be stuck with poor economy and poor endurance and still might not perform that well. The biggest difference between fat vs sugar as fuels is that one tank is much bigger than the other. Your fat tank can power you through an IM or more. Your sugar tank will last for at most about 2-2.5 hours for high-end aerobic exertion.

But your view is also too complicated, as Eric is rightly pointing out. You really don't need to worry about trying to address each of these dimensions independently, and it would be difficult to do so perfectly because they are all interlinked. Running more -- longer and/or more frequently, mostly easy and sometimes hard, will basically address all of them at the same time**. Your body will shift to being able to use more fat at the same speed, but you might actually use more sugar per time than you did before at the highest speeds because you will be able to sustain them for longer. Your body will learn to run with less energy expenditure, which helps the shift to fat metabolism at all speeds but especially slower ones. Your running muscles and skeletal system will become more resilient and more easily able to handle longer sustained energetic demands.

Contrary to what Eric says, I think running can get both easier and faster in training due to improvements in economy and weight loss -- these are both essentially free speed once your body adapts. But your races will never get truly easier, long ones will in fact get harder as you are better trained because you will know your limits better and be able to push yourself closer to the edge for longer. You might not blow up as often which is less painful but not really easier, it's just a reflection of being more consistent in pacing.

*I'm basing this on you having a relatively weak 18:30 5k PR for your VO2max of 63 ml/kg/min. Underperforming at the 5k distance could also be a result of just having very bad endurance with decent or good economy. Your treadmill test might inform about this since they will tell you what your speed was at VO2max and thus your oxygen consumption per distance.

**Of course there are ways to attack specific systems with some preference; tempo runs are a particularly important way of improving your high-end aerobic endurance, speedwork can help with economy, long runs help with general aerobic endurance, etc. But you have the engine, you need to go out and use it more and in a variety of ways if you want to get as much out of it as you can.

I'd disagree with this... the OP has said that their HR is 125 on such runs relative to a maximum of ~173. Thus even though these runs are slow, they are certainly from an aerobic standpoint a "proper stimulus" and not a waste of time. If weekly running time is limited to ~4 hours, then using 3 hours of that on such easy runs may not produce as much of a training stress as would be ideal, but it's also not far from 80/20 training and one would hope that 75% maxHR runs don't stay that slow for too long.