VO2Max Test Results

Ladies,

Today was the first seriously structured day we've had this summer. We're in our third week, so it's time to start really going after some quality, at least on a limited basis. Today's workout was aimed at finding the appropriate level of training for the individual girl, hence everyone running a 12-minute VO2 test.

To review, VO2 refers to the maximum level to which your body can absorb enough oxygen to process energy that will sustain a given effort. In short, it reveals how fast you can go before you cross over to anaerobic (processing energy chemically). This is important to us as distance runners, because it is imperative we maintain an aerobic race until the end. Going anaerobic early on merely blows the entire race.

Once the level is known, workouts can be devised that take advantage of the knowledge and are tailored to the individual. How this works is runners are asked to run in ranges that are percentages of the maximum amount, and those percentages are set by the type of day we as coaches establish. For instance, if tomorrow is an easy day, I might have you run 70% of your maximum speed for the distance. A hard day might be 85% of max, and a race would be 90-95% max.

Bear in mind, this will be a moving target over time. As your fitness and efficiency improve so will your results on the VO2 test. A more efficient and fit runner will get farther in the same amount of time, hence the improvement in the overall score.

That said, let's look at today's results:

Athlete	Grade	Distance	mls/kg/min	Range
Jennifer	7	2580	46.39	Excellent
Carrie	11	2460	43.71	Excellent
Madison	10	2480	44.16	Excellent
Joslyn	9	2480	44.16	Excellent
Katlyn	11	2460	43.71	Excellent
Sarah	9	2430	43.04	Excellent
Zoe	9	2460	44.16	Excellent
Chelsey	9	2420	42.82	Excellent
Chelsea	6	2380	41.92	Excellent
Cynthany	9	2320	40.54	Excellent
Danielle	8	2310	40.36	Excellent
Kate	11	2380	41.92	Excellent
Diana	12	2310	40.36	Excellent
Alli	10	2270	39.46	Excellent
Delaney	8	2180	37.45	Excellent
Kayla	7	1600	24.48	Average
Ani	8	1900	31.19	Above
Molly	9	1900	31.19	Above
Takirah	8	2160	37	Excellent

Note your distance ran vs. the milliliters/kilogram/min ratio (milliliters of oxygen/kilograms of body weight/time). The higher the ratio, the better. In this case, Jennifer topped all by over 2 points. This indicates her body is very efficient. There is still room for improvement, but as you see by the rating under "Range", it falls easily into the excellent category (compared to general population). Note most of you fell into the excellent category as well. That should show you how good a team you guys are, and give you a glimmer of insight into how good you might become. 

I also calculated out a pace for everyone, as well as projected 5k times based on the effort today. Now bear in mind this is an indication of what you would have done had you continued on as you were going, not on what you might have done in a race - those are two different things! I cautioned you about pace, so naturally you were a bit cautious here.

Athlete	Grade	MPM	5k
Jennifer	7	7:26:00	23:02:36
Carrie	11	7:44:00	23:58:24
Madison	10	7:44:00	23:58:24
Joslyn	9	7:44:00	23:58:24
Katlyn	11	7:44:00	23:58:24
Sarah	9	7:56:00	24:35:36
Zoe	9	7:44:00	23:58:24
Chelsey	9	7:56:00	24:35:36
Chelsea	6	8:06:00	25:06:36
Cynthany	9	8:16:00	25:37:36
Danielle	8	8:16:00	25:37:36
Kate	11	8:06:00	25:06:36
Diana	12	8:16:00	25:37:36
Alli	10	8:30:00	26:21:00
Delaney	8	8:48:00	27:16:48
Kayla	7	12:00:00	37:12:00
Ani	8	9:29:00	29:23:54
Molly	9	9:29:00	29:23:54
Takirah	8	8:54:00	27:35:24

I'm actually very pleased with this. It was a first attempt, it was hot, and truthfully, I don't think you girls knew what to expect. Look at our bunching too... of course I am especially interested in what the high school girls did, and I see a very good grouping there. Middle school, don't think I have forgotten you. Note how you compare to the high school girls. Not bad at all!

Kayla, don't pay attention to your score; I pulled you off the course. I only included it so you would have some number to use. I probably shouldn't have because it's likely invalid. 

Okay, so let's assume these values represent your max 5k right now (conservatively). A simple way to use this information to structure workouts would be the following - recovery or easy days range from 1:00-1:30 per mile slower than max 5k pace. So... Jennifer, as the fastest runner today, would recover between 8:26-8:56 pace (7:26 + 1:00-1:30). In yesterday's workout she ran 8:20 pace, though not evenly. There were two miles early on that were in the 7:25 range, and thus her later miles must have slowed to closer to 9 minute. This is not what we want! We need even efforts on recovery runs, because we don't want to spike the heart rate every day. 

I'm sure if we look at all of you we will see the same thing - a fast start, then quickly falling off. It's a tricky thing to master, but we need to find our appropriate level of effort specific to whatever workout we're doing. For the bulk of the high schoolers, this means never going slower than 9:00 pace, something we knew all along we couldn't do and be competitive. Think about it... if you run 9:00 in training, the best you could hope to race is 7:30 per mile. While 22:30 is a fine time, if we can improve our daily running by the end of the summer, perhaps we could knock 30 seconds per mile off that and have 21:00 as our race number - a vast improvement!

It comes down to this... at the high school level we will need at least 5 girls in the neighborhood of 21 or below if we want to move on in State tournament. 7:00 pace is the beginning target, but we'll need to get as many girls as possible under that number if we are to be successful. Don't despair on that number! It's still early on, and we have plenty of time to get it in. Just know that every day has to be used as it should, and you should personally challenge yourselves every day to get the most out of yourselves. Don't worry about the next day, or the one after that. Take care of the one right in front of you and worry about the next one when it comes.