Durability in Ultrarunning with Ed Maunder PhD | Koopcast Episode 160
Episode overview:
Ed Maunder PhD is an exercise physiologist with expertise in metabolic responses to endurance exercise, and metabolic adaptations to endurance training. Ed is a Lecturer in the School of Sport and Recreation and part of the Sport Physiology and Nutrition Research Group at SPRINZ. His research is focused on understanding the physiological drivers of mitochondrial adaptation to endurance exercise, and the physiological profiling of endurance athletes.
Episode highlights:
(13:42) Lactate threshold durability: before and after 2.5 hours of cycling, average decrease of 10%, athletes saw reduced efficiency and reduced energy expenditure, decreasing efficiency is likely even more of a factor in running
(35:37) Training durability: speculation, training specificity to durability, creating stress early during long runs
(44:44) Takeaways: interpreting research on training interventions, arranging training structure intensity-first versus intensity-last, specificity of durability training
Our conversation:
(0:00) Introduction: physiological durability, discrepancies between performance and assessment, introducing Ed
(2:54) Ed’s background: metabolic responses to endurance exercise, physiological profiling
(3:55) Why study durability: Tour de France example, creating power-duration curves, the need for research, understanding ultra-endurance performance and training
(7:58) Defining durability: the resilience of physiological variables over time, identifying metrics
(11:00) Physiological implications of durability: more research is needed, muscular versus cardiovascular angles, fiber type profile, glycogen availability, heat shock proteins
(13:42) Lactate threshold durability: before and after 2.5 hours of cycling, average decrease of 10%, athletes saw reduced efficiency and reduced energy expenditure, decreasing efficiency is likely even more of a factor in running
(16:02) Cardiac drift and durability: common pitfalls for athletes, definitions, effects of stress and dehydration, more cardiac drift may indicate worse durability
(20:48) Counterargument to cardiac drift indicating durability: difficulties in separating benign cardiac drift from deleterious cardiac drift, complications for training
(24:12) Quantifying training stress: examples, challenges in accounting for activity duration, individual variability, and intensity of activity
(29:04) Nonlinearity in training design: progression runs are more stressful than runs that start hard and end slow
(31:03) Placing stress at the end of training sessions: theorizing ways to induce superior adaptations on low volume
(32:56) Future research: investigating the mechanisms of durability, investigating the relationship between physiological durability metrics and performance
(35:37) Training durability: speculation, training specificity to durability, creating stress early during long runs
(38:26) Starting versus ending runs with intensity: eliciting adaptations, polarizing where you place intensity is likely best
(41:45) The performance-assessment mismatch: races are settled in the last 20%, but physiological tests are always performed when athletes are fresh
(43:41) Wrap-up: where to learn more, where to find Ed
(44:44) Takeaways: interpreting research on training interventions, arranging training structure intensity-first versus intensity-last, specificity of durability training
(47:33) Outro: sharing the podcast, giving thanks
Additional resources:
The Importance of ‘Durability’ in the Physiological Profiling of Endurance Athletes
Buy Training Essentials for Ultrarunning on Amazon or Audible
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