Can You Build Running Speed and Endurance at the Same Time?

Can You Build Running Speed and
Endurance at the Same Time?
Watch, listen and read the full episode here
DLake Runs 00:00.049:
Did you know that trying to build aerobic fitness, easy, slow runs and anaerobic
fitness, harder, faster runs at the same time might be like trying to whisper and
shout simultaneously? Sounds impossible, right? But is it? In this episode, we’re
tackling two major issues that most new and experienced runners face. Can you
train for both speed and endurance without sabotaging one or the other? And when
it comes to tracking your progress, is all the technology and metric data helping or
is it leaving you super confused? We’re gonna break down the science of balancing
fitness goals and reveal the biggest mistake runners make when it comes to
tracking their performance. If you’ve ever felt stuck between conflicting goals or
building aerobic base versus sharpening your top end speed or buried in data and
you don’t know how to use it, this episode is for you. But before we get into it, I’ll be
joined by good friend, pro certified running coach and exercise scientist with almost
half a million follows on Instagram, Mike Trees, aka run.energy to help answer all
these questions. I am Darren, certified running and nutrition coach sub three-hour
marathoner, and 10-hour Ironman finisher. Since 1996, I’ve been helping other
self-coached runners, researching and experimenting on how to better myself 1%
each day, because this is the 1% Better Runner. And we do all this to help you live
an amazing run life. Let’s dive into it. Here’s a random question that I have yet to get
the answers from the internet. I love your take on this. I know there’s no perfect
answer, but Mafatone is big on saying, you know, he goes, you can’t build aerobic
fitness and anaerobic fitness at the same time. I remember reading this book and I
was like, Oh, and he’s like, don’t do hard runs. You know, when you’re aerobic
stage of the 16 weeks. you’re going to undo all your aerobic fitness. And I believed
it for the first year and I didn’t touch it. And then I went to race and I was cramping
and everything hurt and I was like, what’s going on? So as I’ve slowly realized I
need to incorporate very fast sprint stuff in my aerobic build period. And then slowly
ramped it up as I started getting towards race specific work. So is it possible to
build both at the same time? Or is it like weight trainers, weightlifters where they
can’t lose body fat and gain muscle at the same time. Like they have to have a cut
phase and a bulk phase. Is anaerobic and aerobic fitness, can you do it at the same

time?

Mike Trees (Run.NRG on IG) 02:08.643:
It depends who you ask. It depends who you ask and what you get the answer. The
theory, in a sense, is, yeah, you shouldn’t work the aerobic and the anaerobic at the
same time, but we live in the real world as well. I think that so long as you do a little
bit of speed work, you’re not going to take the edge off that aerobic engine. Yeah, I
adhere to the principle. in principle that we should do at least 10 weeks of aerobic
training with no anaerobic training in there. However, what I also realize is that you
can do some a-lactic work, which is based on the ATP system, which for anyone
who doesn’t know, the ATP, adenosyl triphosphate, is the initial energy stored in the
muscles. That happens before we go anaerobic. If we keep the sprint short, seven
to ten seconds, take long rests between, we can get the leg speed work done. We
can actually get used to running quick without developing lactic acid so it’s not
blocking the aerobic receptors and prohibiting the aerobic development. We can put
that within an easy run. I quite like doing those sort of things. But also, we have to
be practical. You come off this aerobic base and need to go into racing. I don’t
adhere to absolutely smashing it with intervals on the track, six 400s, big rest, can
you do maximum time in that aerobic peak, but I quite like the VO2 max work and
the 5K fits that perfectly. That 15 to 20, for the elites, the 15 to 20 minute zone, but
basically a 5K effort. You’re probably running mostly aerobic the whole way and
you’re just dipping in a little bit of anaerobic stuff in the last two or three K to get to
the end. Yeah, I mean, it’s so marginal that, yeah, you’ll be a little bit sore the next
day. Once a week, it’s not going to take anything off the aerobic engine. So I’ve
come to the conclusion that, yes, we try not to, but I get the best results out of
doing a big aerobic base, but making sure there’s one good solid workout a week
and there’s one nice leg speed work in there a week. So that would be my take on

it.

DLake Runs 04:27.120:
I like that. Thank you for explaining. Just to define to the listeners, and it would be
really interesting to hear your take. So just so people know, anaerobic isn’t actually
just all out sprinting. That’s the ATP creatine system that you were talking about.
Creatine’s actually just like five seconds power. And aerobic is actually much larger
than people. A lot of people think aerobic is easy and anaerobic is absolutely
sprinting, you know, for 20, 30 seconds up a hill. Whereas anaerobic is actually
more of like the longer tempo and threshold type work. Is that correct? And it’s how
long you stay there and how long your heart rate’s in there, right? Is that correct?
Future Darren here, and I won’t do that thing. You know the thing where people go,
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or get the link in the show notes or video description below. All value, no fluff,
cancel anytime, let’s get back into it. And it’s how long you stay there and how long

your heart rate’s in there, is that correct?

Mike Trees (Run.NRG on IG) 06:08.810:
The simplest way of explaining it is that anaerobic means without oxygen, aerobic
means with oxygen. And when you run, if you run at a pace that’s slow enough, you
supply all the oxygen needs to your muscles as you breathe, and it’s with oxygen.
At short periods of time, you know, when we were hunters and gatherers, we had to
escape. So we’ve got this fight and flight mechanism. We can survive for up to two
minutes without oxygen in the muscles. And it produces energy from the stored
energy in the muscles. But the byproduct of that is something called lactic, and that
builds up in the muscles. Once the lactic builds up in the muscles, it prevents
oxygen from getting into the muscles. Therefore, we have to slow down. If you go
fast for a short period, the payback, as we all know in real terms, is, wow, my legs
are burning. I can’t breathe anymore. I’ve got to slow down. That’s because we’ve
used too much anaerobic energy and built up too much lactic. But people think
there’s this threshold, and they call it AT work, anaerobic threshold. They’re on the
borderline between aerobic and anaerobic. It’s not a line. It’s a zone. The simplest
way to explain it to people is imagine that it’s snowing but it’s above freezing. The
ground is quite warm. The snow comes down. The snow hits the ground and it
melts. There’s no snow on the ground. That’s where most people are running.
They’re in that aerobic zone with a little bit of lactic building up, but the body’s so
efficient, it’s reabsorbing it, and it’s not building up. So it’s snowing, but there’s no
snow building up. Then all of a sudden, a big storm comes down. That’s you
picking the pace up, and it snows really hard, and the snow starts to accumulate
quicker than it can melt. It’s still above freezing. The snow is melting, but it’s
building up quicker than it’s melting. That’s the lactic building up in your muscles. If
you think of it like that, it’s a little bit easier to explain. There is no one line. It’s not,
I’m aerobic, I’m anaerobic. It’s a gray area. In general, in base training, we want to
keep as far away from that as we can. When you’re doing anaerobic work, you
obviously want to go over that line and work it as much as we can. The idea is that
we become more efficient and can run at a quicker pace without going anaerobic.
And so that’s the point of doing training where you work this threshold, you try and
on a graph deflect the graph to the right so we can run at a faster pace but still stay

aerobic.

DLake Runs 08:34.315:
What do you think is the biggest issue that new and experienced runners deal with
in in particular tracking their metrics? So like, you know, we’ve spoken a bit about
the theories behind it all, but a lot of new runners, they come in, they don’t know
exactly what to do. So what do you think the biggest issue is with heart rate and all

that stuff?

Mike Trees (Run.NRG on IG) 08:56.390:
The biggest issue is a little bit of knowledge is dangerous. So everyone has a little
bit of knowledge, but really don’t understand the bigger picture. The bigger picture
is, forget the heart rate monitor, forget the watch, forget everything. It’s, what are
you trying to achieve? Are you trying to achieve running just for fun? Do you just
want to run with your friends and be sociable? Do you want to be a world
champion? Do you want to finish a marathon? Do you want to finish a marathon in a
set time? Do you want to run a 1500? You need to know what your goal is, why
you’re doing it. Most people, when I ask them, they haven’t really thought about
this. So that’s the first problem. The second problem with all this, we then define
their goals and they say, yep, I want to run, I’m going to say this just simply, I want
to run a sub-three-hour marathon. I say, okay, that’s a challenging goal. Where are
we now? Let’s look at the starting point. How do we get there? before we’re even
getting onto any metrics. Then I say to them, this is what we’ll need to do. The next
thing is, we need to fit this into your life cycle. There’s no point in thinking how
you’re going to train and do everything if you’ve got a sick mother you have to look
after or if your job is 12 hours a day. Everything has to fit in. We have to look at all
the external factors playing. Are you a student that has to pass your exams first?
Then we might say, okay, That’s more realistic. You’ve got to get through those
exams. Maybe the marathon isn’t so good now. Maybe let’s look at something
simpler and get a different goal. We then define our goal and what’s realistic within
their social, academic, and financial lifestyle so it can fit into a daily pattern. Then
we can come to, do they need a watch? Do they need to start looking at the metrics
and where they’re going? We start to look at how fit they are, where they need to
go. I think You don’t need that watch yet. As you said right at the start, I don’t know
if it’s going to be cut out or not, but the point is, when they start training, they just
have to run and they’re going to get quicker. My thing is, just get them running, but
also get them running at a sustainable level that they’re not going to be running for
three weeks then injured and miss three weeks. Let’s get a sustainable build-up
pattern and then let’s start adding complexity. along the line. It never gets easier.
They just get more in tune with their own bodies and able to cope with more work
and more metrics and more knowledge. I don’t want to be saying, let’s have a look
at your cadence to a runner who’s just starting. I’ll just get them to run. I’ll happily
look at their cadence and say, well, it’s near enough there or thereabouts. Let’s
forget about that one for now and look at something else. Are they overstriding? Are
they landing really badly? Let’s work on some form things that we need to work on.
Let’s look at the most important things. The metrics come last. Too many people are
into IT these days. They’re into the gadgets. To be honest, I love them as well. I love
looking at it, but for me, it’s a fun little thing that I like looking at. It’s not serious. I
posted about how smartwatches give me a VO2 max of 70. Well, that just confuses
most people because I’ll tell them to do an aerobic run and the metric on the
smartwatch actually don’t count aerobic runs to build up their VO2. They just count
zone 3. They just look at the heart rate and say, have you been in zone 3 for how
long? Yes, your VO2 max is going up. Have you been in zone 1 too much? Oh, your
VO2 is going down. So, they often don’t understand how the metrics work on the
smartwatches, and it confuses them. The smartwatches totally overestimate the
metrics. It gives me one of 70, for example. Whereas when I had a VO2 of 70, I was
running 345 for the 1500 meters, and 70 is actually classified as a sub-international
runner. So, you’re on the borders of just about getting international status running,
which is what I was. Derek Clayton at a VO2 max of 69 broke the marathon world
record. There’s so much in these metrics that are meaningless but interesting. I
think the main metric to have a little bit of idea on is heart rate, just to understand it,
the way you’re going. That’s the first one to get into if I had to pick one metric and

start to learn about your body and your heart rate.

DLake Runs 13:13.160:
Time, time, time. I’m obsessed with it as it’s the one thing we can’t make more of.
But ironically, we as humans, we made the whole concept of time. Thanks for giving
us your time by listening, watching, or reading this. We love helping runners get 1%
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