Peaking (2)

"Peaking" is the process of training to be at your very best -- to reach your "peak" -- when it matters most, typically in the last few races of the competitive season. There are few things as satisfying as running a personal best in a championship situation.

There are two things you should know about peaking:

1. Peaking has both physical and a psychological aspects

2. Peaking sounds easy. But it isn't... trust me.

This is not to say that there isn't a reputable science of peaking, at least of peaking physically. In the 1970's, a physiologist named David Costill did a number of studies of collegiate swimmers. Costill's work showed beyond a doubt that when a period of intense training was followed by a period of recovery, athletes recorded their best times. In essence, that's all peaking is: training followed by recovery. The difficulty lies in knowing how much training and how much recovery is optimal.

In the 1950's, Arthur Lydiard developed a training regimen for a group of New Zealand runners who went on to achieve worldwide fame and Olympic Glory. Lydiard preached the benefits of large quantities of aerobic (low intensity) training, for a period of six months or more, followed by a relatively short period during which the athlete ran hill workouts, and then speedworkouts. The success of Lydiard's athletes was like a bombshell in the athletic world, and almost every distance runner now incorporates some form of Lydiard's methods in their training plans.

Perhaps the greatest example of Lydiard-style peaking was achieved by Lasse Viren, the great Finnish runner who won the 5000m and 10,000m in the 1972 Olympics, and then repeated the feat in the 1976 Olympics. Viren was highly unusual in that he never ran particularly impressive times in non-Olympic years, preferring to do nothing but build a base of high mileage. When the Olympics rolled around, he would reduce his mileage, begin doing structured speed workouts, and destroy his competition. The patience of the man is still astounding.

Before Lydiard, the conventional wisdom was that athletes needed to do speedwork throughout the year, and lots of it at all times. Even after Lydiard, not all coaches or athletes bought into the Lydiard system. This opposition was famously captured in the aphorism "Long, slow distance makes long, slow runners." There is some truth to this, and it's helpful to remember that Lydiard's athletes did their running in the very hilly terrain of New Zealand. Since all the runs were done on hills, they were not exactly easy runs. An athlete training with Lydiard would spend their Sundays running a 22-mile loop through the steep hills around Auckland at better than 6:30/mile pace. After six months of that, you bet his runners were fit!

They were also supremely confident, and this brings me to the second aspect of peaking, and the one that is most difficult to control. Peaking means being ready not only physically, but mentally as well. Ideally, the athlete's mental state reaches a peak of confidence and eagerness as the important races approach. But this is easier said than done! First of all, a lot of runners derive their sense of confidence from their last hard workout. For a runner like that, resting too much can wreck havoc on their belief in their abilities. It only takes a few days before the "edge" starts wearing off, and worries start setting in. Second, training well is a matter of routine and rhythm, and when one disrupts the rhythm (even to get some well-deserved rest), results are not always what one hopes.

The real key to peaking is to believe in both the training and the recovery, and this belief only comes about through absolute trust of a coach, or a trust in yourself developed over years of successful peaking.

Are there guidelines to follow? Sure. For one thing, don't expect to peak too often. If you think you can peak every couple of weeks, you're talking about something else, not peaking. A true peak is the result of a long buildup that allows the body to adapt to a significantly higher level of training. If you started training three weeks ago, don't worry about peaking any time soon... I generally try to arrange my training to peak twice a year: once in the Fall (October/early November) and once in the late Winter (March). In April, I start over again with a long buildup that lasts four-five months. It might seem like a long time to do nothing but train, but the broader the base, the higher the peak.

Another guideline is to be judicious in the use of anaerobic work. The thing is, some anaerobic repetition work is useful for a distance runner. However, it can be counter-productive to do too much of this type of work, since it is physically and mentally demanding and has diminishing returns compared with say, aerobic capacity work. What prevents you from running faster at 5K is your ability to use oxygen, not your ability to run without oxygen, as you would do in a 400-meter dash.

While SOME speedwork can be useful year round, in the early stages of a buildup, speedwork should take a backseat.