I believe endurance training is similar for many sports in that it requires both mind and body to be used in a sufficiently correct manner to produce the best possible results. It therefore makes sense that I can super-compensate mentally as well as physically, although the time-scale of gains will be different, because I think faster than I move

I reckon that one part of my brain is the thinking bit, and the rest remembers - well, that is what I believe anyway. There are many estimates of how much we can recall, though I am sceptical about the chap who claimed he could remember before birth ('Going to a picnic with my dad and returning with my mum'). My limit is some childhood memories. What is important is that I remember success where possible, hence interval training, where I work at faster than race pace, is vital. My remembering mind sees and feels success

Since all languages are used by athletes, it follows that minds are less influenced by instructions and more by pictures and feelings. Similarly, the memory is either on or off, so I am best served by feeding it success items only. We have all had some successes in our life and I replay mine over and over. It doesn't seem to matter that they are not all sport-related; what matters is that they are successes

The space between my thoughts is where I believe my mental progress occurs and since time is my competitor, it is my role model. The fastest competitor always wins. One of my faults is that I forget quickly and have had far too many injuries, through varying the training too quickly, and repeatedly not following the 10% volume and 5% load rules. It is equally important not to vary the mental training by large amounts, either.
I compete at 500m, 2000m, 30- and 60-minute distances. Preparing for 500 is different to 2000 and while the longer distances are not head to head, they require more recovery time. My body needed more preparation to cope with four consecutive days at anaerobic threshold for 30 minutes each and most physical injuries could be traced to over-use at this work rate

The training programme set up in January 1996 (see last month's PP) was followed during February and March, and, based on my 1995 best, showed a gain of some 2% in speed across the range. In December 1995 I caught a severe dose of flu which meant that January started at 4% down on my '95 best. It took until the middle of February to attain previous levels at 2000m and I had not tried the rest. Progress then slowed down and it was a case of one forward, sometimes nothing, and, if I had not recovered, one back

The one session where my speed got faster every week was the 30 seconds work, 60 seconds rest routine. which I mentioned last time. This indicated an improvement in anaerobic volume, which is vital for the start and finish of a 2000m race, since it allows a higher speed during the last 200m

During this period, it became evident that the physical recovery time I was needing was more than the super-compensation gain, hence I decided to reduce the load of weights I was lifting on Mondays and Thursdays. This was to benefit me in May but not immediately, as my knee joints had been put under excessive strain and would need time to recover. In addition the bar was slipping out of my fingers after some 200 pulls, reducing the effectiveness of 255 pulls. The reduction was some 20% in weight and to compensate I increased the speed from 30 to 40 operations per minute


A pattern of strokes
In interval training, the use of varying work times trains all aspects of the body and mind. The varying stroke rates train both slow-twitch and fast-twitch muscles. As the programme was aimed mainly at 2000m, I decided that the best times would be achieved by the lowest lactate pain throughout the exercise. Hence a pattern evolved of using 24 strokes a minute for the first 500m, then 28 for the next 500m, 32 for the third 500 and 36 for the final 500. This enabled me to pull hard for 1000m at slow-twitch pace, relying on strength, then build to lock up at the end. While working on both the bike and the run at max, I felt that I could go no faster, whereas the rowing always felt that there was more to come once I got the method right, as I could not produce consistency of results

During this period, I tried varying amounts of sodium bicarb, citrate, cysterne, chalk, Rennies and Boots Original Indigestion Fluid as a lactate buffer. The most successful was the Boots Original - half a bottle of that seemed to help by 1 to 2 seconds over 2000m, or in kc terms, a quarter of a small potato crisp! Most of the others had me in the loo too often. This may have been as much to do with me being an ectomorph as anything else, as may the extensive muscle pains. It seems that people with skeletal bodies do feel a higher amount of pain than most

Assuming 1995 best times, my fastest speed improved by about 0.2% more than the 16km speed improvement and the training percentage based on 16km pace was 141% at125m, to 146% highest. From this it can be seen that I am very slow when compared with world-best short distances of 170+% of 16km pace. My genetic speed curve is flatter than ideal and while a bit can be put down to age I will find it tough to make world-record pace at 2000m

This is where the importance of speed via interval training was recognised. Thereafter the aim was to increase my body's capacity to operate for longer at faster than race pace by means of extended time at just above anaerobic threshold. As we all know, this is where concentration is vital and when we have finished the exercise, after a few seconds the pain explodes. As one mum said to me: 'It's like trying to give birth through your lungs!' The hardest part was getting my body to change to aerobic work without losing too much speed at 700m, and this led to dropping the initial stroke rate to 24. I tried it slower but could not hold the speed

Next month I'll talk about biorhythms, their effect, the next programme, and competition

Noel Frost