Restoration in Long Distance Running – Part 3
If you are going to run a long distance, the carbohydrate reserves must be used economically. For this, fats must be used so as to save the carbohydrates reserves. In turn, this means you can train more intensively in the aerobic zone (see two articles on MaxVO2) at:
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You need to note that anaerobic running does not use carbohydrates since their breakdown gives relatively little energy and so they are soon depleted. Furthermore, in anaerobic conditions lactic acid builds up in the blood and muscles, which can seriously change your body's system bringing about a decrease in your ability to do work.
As a result, restoration particularly means the increase of carbohydrate reserves in the liver and muscles. A second aspect is to improve the economic use of carbohydrates, and a third aspect is to decrease the toxic influence of lactic acid.
Different types of work bring different types of depletion
The amount of carbohydrate decrease and corresponding type of replenishment depends upon the type of workload that caused the decrease.
After a cross-country run of about an hour's duration, it will take until lunchtime of the following day for carbohydrate restoration to take place. The amount of carbohydrate restored corresponds to the initial level.
Mixed aerobic/anaerobic sessions such as repetitions (see previous article) and temp runs will require up to 48 hours. During this time, the fastest rate of refilling occurs in the first 6 hours. In contrast to aerobic training, with good effective nutrition and diet more carbohydrate is ressupercompensationpleted, leading to an energy supercompensation, which increases the athlete's ability to do work. (Diet and nutrition will be treated in a forthcoming article, and then added to in further articles)
As a consequence of this supercompensation, and as illustrated in part 1 organiseseries of articles on restoration, you must organise your training so that there is not quite enough restoration after a hard workout so that after a seriesupercompensationstoration will bring about greater supercompensation of carbohydrate reserves, and in turn a significant increase in work capacity, and so results in races.
Importance of Tempo runs, Medium and Repetitions
Spending your energy economically increases your ability to work and speeds up the restorative processes. This means long distance cross country runs at a pace near the anaerobic threshold - 160 to 180 heart beats per minute. This activates the use of fats and gradually increases their role in providing energy while retaining the carbohydrate reserve.
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