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This article is part of a series:
→ Part 1 — What is fatigue?
→ Part 2 — Do your muscles slow you down?
→ Part 3 — Does your brain slow you down?
→ Part 4 — Why do you slow down?
→ Part 5 — How to resist slowing down.
→ Part 6 — There’s always something left in the tank.
→ Part 1 — What is fatigue?
→ Part 2 — Do your muscles slow you down?
→ Part 3 — Does your brain slow you down?
→ Part 4 — Why do you slow down?
→ Part 5 — How to resist slowing down.
→ Part 6 — There’s always something left in the tank.
Fatigue in runners. Part 6 of 6:
The final sprint — why is there always something left in the tank?
Thomas Solomon PhD.
7th May 2022.
Despite what we do (and don’t yet) know about fatigue, its signs and symptoms, and how to resist it, there is one mystifying phenomenon… There is ALWAYS something left in the tank even when you’re slowing down. To help understand that, I’ve got something about crocodiles, Yoda, and a little bit about a concept called “critical speed”. Stay with me to hear more as I wrap up this series on fatigue in runners…
Reading time ~15-mins.
Or listen to the Podcast version.
Or listen to the Podcast version.
If you hadn’t drunk any water for hours before a race, had been sweating volumes, and were thirsty on the start line, then your race day detonation might be attributable to dehydration and/or sodium loss. If you were in a state of low carb availability prior to and during the race, then your race day detonation might be attributable to glycogen depletion and/or hypoglycaemia. If it was hot and you started with an elevated core temperature and didn’t use any pre-race and/or during-race cooling strategies, then your race day detonation might be attributable to heat stress. If you had been under heavy work stress or life stress leading into the race or your travel to the race was a Frodo-like epic, then your race day detonation might be attributable to cognitive fatigue. If you started out way too fast and detonated hard, your race day detonation might be attributable to your insane lack of pacing judgement. And, if the race was much further or much more technical (mountainous) than you are used to and/or were prepared for, then your race day detonation might be attributable to a lack of physical condition. As you now know, Darth Fader
, the Sith Lord of Fatigue, comes in many forms. Yet, there’s one part of your race day performance that’s seemingly immune to the Darkside…
Imagine this scenario.
You’ve had a hard week of training, a horribly stressful week at work, your newborn has kept you up every night demanding “feed me!”, and now you are coming to the end of a 3-hour morning run. You didn’t eat breakfast before the run, you haven’t eaten since dinner the night before, it’s roasting hot and you haven't drunk anything since you left home, your legs are trashed, you feel horrible and want to stop. But, all of a sudden, out of leftfield, a hungry crocodile swings out of the trees and starts chasing you.
What do you do?
Sprint!
Motivation is high. You believe you can beat the crocodile. You can easily resist fatigue. Survival is your priority (primarily, so you can grow old and be an annoying parent to your teenage kid, cracking endless “dad jokes” in front of their mates in retribution for them destroying your sleep many moons prior).
It’s a very weird phenomenon but there’s always something left in the tank. Yes, your brain probably slows you down during exercise to protect your body from irreversible damage but your brain probably also slows you down to keep something in reserve (to evade hungry, tree-dwelling crocodiles). Being able to tap into this reserve is golden for race day success.
That’s all I want to say about crocodiles. But, how much fun is it to engage in a sprint for the line?! It’s incredible to watch! I challenge anyone to go watch Haile Gebrselassie and Paul Tergat jousting for 10,000m gold at the Sydney Olympics or Kelly Holmes battle to win 800m and 1500m gold in Athens, and not get excited. No doubt, you’ve had your own tussles. Like you, I’ve had my own fair share of race line battles — my most memorable was in Reykjavik many moons ago against a German dude who had shorter short shorts, a more valiant war face, and a mightier crocodile-evading sprint, eventually pipping me for the win.
Image Copyright © Thomas Solomon. All rights reserved.
Is it the athlete who is least fatigued?
The athlete with the highest “V̇O2max”?
The athlete with the fastest “velocity at V̇O2max”?
The athlete with the fastest “critical speed”?
The athlete with the greatest ability to work above their critical speed (“anaerobic work capacity”)?
The athlete with the highest “maximum speed”?
The athlete with the highest “speed-in-reserve”?
The athlete who is most motivated and has the greatest “self-belief”?
Or,
The athlete with all the above attributes?
To keep it simple, I will say that it is complicated. But, first up…
In studies where athletes exercise at a fixed intensity for an hour or more with repeated maximal sprints sprinkled in along the way, the maximal power of each successive sprint typically deteriorates with time (examples here, here, here, & here). Some (although not all) such studies show that trained athletes are sometimes able to up the power of their final sprint. However, such studies have told the subjects exactly what is coming, how many sprints they have left, and how long they’ve been riding. Under such conditions, it is highly likely that the “maximal” sprints during the ride are not actually maximal because the subjects may be knowingly or subconsciously holding something back for the final sprint of the session. Despite that possibility, studies that find athletes able to unleash an extra little bit of large for the final sprint also find that the otherwise deteriorating brain-to-muscle electrical signal (measured by EMG) also rises for that final sprint. I.e., there is always something left in the tank and it can come from the brain.
Why?
Because audiovisual feedback allows you to know the end is coming, prompting you to dig deep into your reserves and metaphorically empty the tank. Accordingly, visually-impaired athletes, for example, need their guides to tell them when the finish is approaching to trigger their final surge for the line.
So, yes, your brain is a powerful tool that processes lots of internal and external inputs to understand what is going on and what to do next. But, we must never forget that our level of effort (RPE) during exercise is driven by a combination of our current pace/speed/power output (external load metrics) and how well conditioned (physically, psychologically, and emotionally) we are to deal with it. So, we cannot ignore that our effort level also involves our physiological attributes…
One obvious limitation of Marcora & Staiano’s study is the lack of a control trial, meaning that we don’t know if the maximal power at the second sprint was lowered simply because there was a prior maximal sprint — i.e. was the between-sprint ride to exhaustion necessary? But another important and highly-relevant limitation is that the subjects were merely regular folks not trained athletes — their maximal power was only 1075 watts, their peak aerobic power was only 302 watts, and they only managed to ride for ~10-minutes (10.5±2.1 mins) at 80% of their peak aerobic power.
Why am I saying “only”?
Because during a race, an endurance-trained athlete will far exceed these values. In the interest of fun, we can mine Mathieu Van der Poel’s data on Strava. He is a pro cyclist with a current peak aerobic power of 524 watts and, en route to winning the 2022 edition of Ronde van Vlaanderen (the Tour of Flanders) a couple of weeks ago, he rode at an average of ~338 watts for ~6½ hours, producing a maximal power output of 1406 watts! That’s a lot of Van der Poels.
Yes, the force is strong with trained athletes. But, an important question emerges…
Is a trained endurance athlete “immune” to the maximal power-losing effect of prolonged hard exercise?
And, if so…
Can that “immunity” (aka “fatigue resistance”) help us understand who wins in a race for the line?
In cycling, there is a metabolic concept known as critical power, which is a sustainable level of power output (in joules per second, aka watts) above which you fatigue (slow down) rapidly. You can think of critical power as a kind of metabolic fatigue threshold. The amount of energy (joules) available to spend above your critical power is called W’ (pronounced W-prime), which is a small, rapidly-depletable amount of energy (joules) you can use for “giving it large” for short durations. For want of a better phrase, you can think of W’ as your “anaerobic” work capacity; but, more accurately, W’ is your capacity to work above critical power.
To estimate your critical power and W’, just like any performance tests, you would perform them in a well-rested state. But, it is important to know that prolonged cycling decreases critical power and W’ even in elite cyclists (see here & here). Furthermore, being able to “resist” this deterioration is what separates world-class from sub-elite athletes (see here & here) — better performing athletes have more large left to give at the end of a long race. So, at the top end of world-class endurance performance where physiological traits are pretty similar among athletes — they all have a high V̇O2max, high efficiency (or economy), and a high critical power (or critical speed) — it is likely that “fatigue resistance” of these variables is what separates the champions from the losers.
But, it's a little more complicated than that.
Why?
Because we know that…
When racing very short “endurance” events, like a mile or an 800m, anaerobic speed reserve (your capacity for speed above your velocity at V̇O2max) is critical for success (see here, here, & here). In such races, you’re running way faster than your critical speed and depleting your D’ rapidly, leaving no (or very little) “large” in the tank for the end. Therefore, you typically can’t speed up in the “sprint” for the line in an 800m or mile race and it becomes more about who slows down the least rather than who speeds up the most. On the flip side, when racing a 10 km you’re probably running ever-so-slightly above your critical speed and, therefore, ever-so-gradually depleting your D’, leaving some “large” in the tank to speed up in a burst for the line. In both scenarios, the clock is ticking until the “D’ tank” is empty.
Right. But, how do these constructs, critical speed and D’, help determine who wins the final sprint for the line?
A 2021 study from Brett Kirby and colleagues analysed data from athletes competing in the men’s 5,000 and 10,000-metre races at the 2017 World Athletics Champs in London. The two races were pretty distinct — the 5000m had a winning time of 13:32, was a relatively slow race with a big pack of runners jostling at the bell and a mighty fight for the medals; whereas the 10,000m had a winning time 26:49, was a fast race from the gun with a smaller bunch left with 1-lap to go. These distinct outcomes were useful because the different race strategies and presence vs. absence of mid-race surges caused a large range of D’ depletion among the runners — in other words, the variable race tactics left athletes with different amount of “large” to unleash in their bid for the World title on the final lap. And, this was important because, using recent race results, Kirby and colleagues calculated each athlete’s critical speed and D’ to try to predict who should have won the respective events based on their metabolic capacity.
What did they find?
Athletes’ critical speed was correlated with race finish position in the 10,000m (R-squared [R2] = 0.38; P≤0.05) but not the 5000m (R2 = 0.04; P=0.58). Meanwhile, the total amount of distance athletes had available for giving it large (D’) was not correlated with race finish position.
Hmmm. Well, that’s a bit boring.
The data indicate that having a higher critical speed than your competitors may help but the R2 value of 0.38 means that just 38% of the variance in finish position order in the 10,000m was explained by critical speed. Meanwhile, the data also indicate that the total D’ available — the total amount of “large” you have to give — seems not to matter.
But…
The analytical approach of examining the role of athletes’ total D’ (their amount of “large” in the tank when they toed the start line) ignores athletes’ pacing strategies during the race. This is why the authors also examined the role of how much “large” (D’) athletes had left when they heard the bell for the final lap. I.e. the authors essentially asked:
What did athletes have left in the tank when all the “fast starts” and “mid-race surges” had occurred and, therefore, they had frequently danced above their critical speed, depleting D’?
This is where the importance of tactics and pacing became clear!
It turned out that the finishing order in both the 5000m and 10,000m races was best predicted by who had the most D’ left when they began the sprint for home with 400m to go (R2 = 0.95 in the 5000m and 0.94 in the 10,000m). These are impressive correlation coefficients since an R2 of 1 is a perfect relationship. Consequently, these findings help reiterate what I said earlier:
Better performing athletes have more large left to give for longer at the end of a long race.
. The study I just described, further emphasises this point by showing us that world-class runners who spent more time above their critical speed early in the race had less D’ in the tank available for the final sprint for the line.
Would better pacing have helped them?
Probably. But, we can’t be sure because Doc’s DeLorean can’t take the athletes back to rerun the 2017 World Champs finals.
What is certain is that when your RPE is rising towards your maximal tolerable effort level, you want it to feel good rather than bad. A wise pacing strategy can certainly help with that. I have hundreds of anecdotal observations from myself and my athletes when a high RPE hurt like hell after starting out like a space rocket and eventually running the same race time as a previous occasion when starting out with less haste and the same level of during-race effort felt amazing. Fun anecdotes that teach us a lot
As I said at the beginning, it is complicated. To ensure you always have something left in the tank and are successful with your race day sprint for the line, you need many skills. You need endurance. You need speed. You need motivation and self-belief. You need tactical savvy and a generous portion of emotional intelligence. But wise coaches and athletes already knew these things. If you didn’t, now you do.
No matter what explains why there is always something left in the tank, one thing is for sure… Next time a hungry crocodile swings out of the trees and starts chasing you, always give it large! Until that time, stay nerdy and keep empowering yourself to be the best athlete you can be by training smart…
Thanks for joining me for another “session”. I am passionate about equality in access to free education. If you find value in my content, please help keep it alive by sharing it on social media and buying me a beer at buymeacoffee.com/thomas.solomon. For more knowledge, join me @thomaspjsolomon on Twitter, follow @veohtu on Facebook and Instagram, subscribe to my free email updates at veothu.com/subscribe, and visit veohtu.com to check out my other Articles, Nerd Alerts, Free Training Tools, and my Train Smart Framework. To learn while you train, you can even listen to my articles by subscribing to the Veohtu podcast.
, the Sith Lord of Fatigue, comes in many forms. Yet, there’s one part of your race day performance that’s seemingly immune to the Darkside…
Imagine this scenario.
You’ve had a hard week of training, a horribly stressful week at work, your newborn has kept you up every night demanding “feed me!”, and now you are coming to the end of a 3-hour morning run. You didn’t eat breakfast before the run, you haven’t eaten since dinner the night before, it’s roasting hot and you haven't drunk anything since you left home, your legs are trashed, you feel horrible and want to stop. But, all of a sudden, out of leftfield, a hungry crocodile swings out of the trees and starts chasing you.
What do you do?
Sprint!
Motivation is high. You believe you can beat the crocodile. You can easily resist fatigue. Survival is your priority (primarily, so you can grow old and be an annoying parent to your teenage kid, cracking endless “dad jokes” in front of their mates in retribution for them destroying your sleep many moons prior).
It’s a very weird phenomenon but there’s always something left in the tank. Yes, your brain probably slows you down during exercise to protect your body from irreversible damage but your brain probably also slows you down to keep something in reserve (to evade hungry, tree-dwelling crocodiles). Being able to tap into this reserve is golden for race day success.
That’s all I want to say about crocodiles. But, how much fun is it to engage in a sprint for the line?! It’s incredible to watch! I challenge anyone to go watch Haile Gebrselassie and Paul Tergat jousting for 10,000m gold at the Sydney Olympics or Kelly Holmes battle to win 800m and 1500m gold in Athens, and not get excited. No doubt, you’ve had your own tussles. Like you, I’ve had my own fair share of race line battles — my most memorable was in Reykjavik many moons ago against a German dude who had shorter short shorts, a more valiant war face, and a mightier crocodile-evading sprint, eventually pipping me for the win.
×
![]()
But, in these epic battles, who wins?
Is it the athlete who is least fatigued?
The athlete with the highest “V̇O2max”?
The athlete with the fastest “velocity at V̇O2max”?
The athlete with the fastest “critical speed”?
The athlete with the greatest ability to work above their critical speed (“anaerobic work capacity”)?
The athlete with the highest “maximum speed”?
The athlete with the highest “speed-in-reserve”?
The athlete who is most motivated and has the greatest “self-belief”? Or,
The athlete with all the above attributes? Your mind is a powerful tool during a sprint for the win.
As Yoda, the most powerful Jedi Master of the Fatigue Resistance, once said:
“Do or do not. There is no try.” 
Earlier in this series, I discussed how “slowing down” (fatigue) is influenced by a complex interaction of your level of effort (your RPE, i.e. how easy or hard it feels), the hazard of effort (vs. how far is left), your enjoyment of the effort (how good or bad it feels), your motivation to maintain the effort, and your belief that you can maintain the effort. At the end of a race in a sprint for the line, your effort is high (RPE is 10/10) and there is no hazard because the race will be over in less than a minute. So, to answer “why is there always something in the tank for the final sprint?”, it is logical to argue that your success comes down to your enjoyment of the race, your motivation to push beyond, and your self-belief that you can succeed in achieving your goal (which could be a position, medal, or time etc). If the effort feels bad, you will not unleash the beast. If you are not motivated to ride the wave of pain, you will not unleash the beast. If you do not believe you are fast enough, you will not unleash the beast.
In studies where athletes exercise at a fixed intensity for an hour or more with repeated maximal sprints sprinkled in along the way, the maximal power of each successive sprint typically deteriorates with time (examples here, here, here, & here). Some (although not all) such studies show that trained athletes are sometimes able to up the power of their final sprint. However, such studies have told the subjects exactly what is coming, how many sprints they have left, and how long they’ve been riding. Under such conditions, it is highly likely that the “maximal” sprints during the ride are not actually maximal because the subjects may be knowingly or subconsciously holding something back for the final sprint of the session. Despite that possibility, studies that find athletes able to unleash an extra little bit of large for the final sprint also find that the otherwise deteriorating brain-to-muscle electrical signal (measured by EMG) also rises for that final sprint. I.e., there is always something left in the tank and it can come from the brain.
×
![]()
To put this in a real-life context, the final sprint for the line unleashed by competitors in all events, even events like cycling where intermediate sprints are commonplace, gives massive support for a major role of your brain in fatigue during exercise.
Why?
Because audiovisual feedback allows you to know the end is coming, prompting you to dig deep into your reserves and metaphorically empty the tank. Accordingly, visually-impaired athletes, for example, need their guides to tell them when the finish is approaching to trigger their final surge for the line.
So, yes, your brain is a powerful tool that processes lots of internal and external inputs to understand what is going on and what to do next. But, we must never forget that our level of effort (RPE) during exercise is driven by a combination of our current pace/speed/power output (external load metrics) and how well conditioned (physically, psychologically, and emotionally) we are to deal with it. So, we cannot ignore that our effort level also involves our physiological attributes…
Your physiology is an equally powerful tool for the sprint for the line.
In 2010, when Sam Marcora and Walter Staiano published their findings that maximal sprint power was reduced (from 1075±214 to 731±206 watts) following a high-intensity ride-to-failure at 242±24 watts (equivalent to 80% of riders’ peak aerobic power, 302±30 watts), one thing was intriguing... Maximal power output following the ride-to-failure was still 3-times higher than the power output subjects could no longer ride at (731 compared to 242 watts). In other words, when exhausted, we can still produce a huge amount of power, should we so choose. There is always something left in the tank (although, perhaps, a different tank).One obvious limitation of Marcora & Staiano’s study is the lack of a control trial, meaning that we don’t know if the maximal power at the second sprint was lowered simply because there was a prior maximal sprint — i.e. was the between-sprint ride to exhaustion necessary? But another important and highly-relevant limitation is that the subjects were merely regular folks not trained athletes — their maximal power was only 1075 watts, their peak aerobic power was only 302 watts, and they only managed to ride for ~10-minutes (10.5±2.1 mins) at 80% of their peak aerobic power.
Why am I saying “only”?
Because during a race, an endurance-trained athlete will far exceed these values. In the interest of fun, we can mine Mathieu Van der Poel’s data on Strava. He is a pro cyclist with a current peak aerobic power of 524 watts and, en route to winning the 2022 edition of Ronde van Vlaanderen (the Tour of Flanders) a couple of weeks ago, he rode at an average of ~338 watts for ~6½ hours, producing a maximal power output of 1406 watts! That’s a lot of Van der Poels.
Yes, the force is strong with trained athletes. But, an important question emerges…
Is a trained endurance athlete “immune” to the maximal power-losing effect of prolonged hard exercise?
Can that “immunity” (aka “fatigue resistance”) help us understand who wins in a race for the line?
To estimate your critical power and W’, just like any performance tests, you would perform them in a well-rested state. But, it is important to know that prolonged cycling decreases critical power and W’ even in elite cyclists (see here & here). Furthermore, being able to “resist” this deterioration is what separates world-class from sub-elite athletes (see here & here) — better performing athletes have more large left to give at the end of a long race. So, at the top end of world-class endurance performance where physiological traits are pretty similar among athletes — they all have a high V̇O2max, high efficiency (or economy), and a high critical power (or critical speed) — it is likely that “fatigue resistance” of these variables is what separates the champions from the losers.
But, it's a little more complicated than that.
Why?
Because we know that…
Tactics and pacing influence your fatigue resistance.
I just mentioned that, in cycling, there are concepts called critical power and W’. The bipedal equivalents in running are critical speed and D’ (pronounced D-prime). Your critical speed is a sustainable velocity (measured in metres per second) that is considered a “fatigue threshold” because, when running faster than your critical speed, sustainable effort becomes unsustainable and you slow down rapidly. Meanwhile, D’ is a short, depletable amount of total distance (in metres) over which you can “give it large” when running faster than your critical speed. To keep things simple, you can think of D’ as how much “rapid fuel” you have in the tank for a maximal burst of “giving it large” to the line at the end of a race. (Like W’, D’ is kind of an “anaerobic” work capacity; or, more accurately, your capacity to work above your critical speed.)Please note that the word anaerobic is always misleading in these contexts because it implies that no oxygen is being used to produce energy, which is not correct. During short to medium duration high-intensity races (e.g. up to ~10 km), a lot of oxygen is being used at a rate so high that you’ve reached your V̇O2max and, therefore, any additional energy required to go faster has to come from “non oxygen requiring” [aka “non oxidative”] pathways such as phosphocreatine or glycolysis.
×
![]()
Don’t worry if you find these jargony terms confusing, I will go deep on the critical speed concept soon. To help bring clarity right now, let’s give these jargony terms some running-related context…
When racing very short “endurance” events, like a mile or an 800m, anaerobic speed reserve (your capacity for speed above your velocity at V̇O2max) is critical for success (see here, here, & here). In such races, you’re running way faster than your critical speed and depleting your D’ rapidly, leaving no (or very little) “large” in the tank for the end. Therefore, you typically can’t speed up in the “sprint” for the line in an 800m or mile race and it becomes more about who slows down the least rather than who speeds up the most. On the flip side, when racing a 10 km you’re probably running ever-so-slightly above your critical speed and, therefore, ever-so-gradually depleting your D’, leaving some “large” in the tank to speed up in a burst for the line. In both scenarios, the clock is ticking until the “D’ tank” is empty.
Right. But, how do these constructs, critical speed and D’, help determine who wins the final sprint for the line?
A 2021 study from Brett Kirby and colleagues analysed data from athletes competing in the men’s 5,000 and 10,000-metre races at the 2017 World Athletics Champs in London. The two races were pretty distinct — the 5000m had a winning time of 13:32, was a relatively slow race with a big pack of runners jostling at the bell and a mighty fight for the medals; whereas the 10,000m had a winning time 26:49, was a fast race from the gun with a smaller bunch left with 1-lap to go. These distinct outcomes were useful because the different race strategies and presence vs. absence of mid-race surges caused a large range of D’ depletion among the runners — in other words, the variable race tactics left athletes with different amount of “large” to unleash in their bid for the World title on the final lap. And, this was important because, using recent race results, Kirby and colleagues calculated each athlete’s critical speed and D’ to try to predict who should have won the respective events based on their metabolic capacity.
What did they find?
Athletes’ critical speed was correlated with race finish position in the 10,000m (R-squared [R2] = 0.38; P≤0.05) but not the 5000m (R2 = 0.04; P=0.58). Meanwhile, the total amount of distance athletes had available for giving it large (D’) was not correlated with race finish position.
Hmmm. Well, that’s a bit boring.
The data indicate that having a higher critical speed than your competitors may help but the R2 value of 0.38 means that just 38% of the variance in finish position order in the 10,000m was explained by critical speed. Meanwhile, the data also indicate that the total D’ available — the total amount of “large” you have to give — seems not to matter.
But…
The analytical approach of examining the role of athletes’ total D’ (their amount of “large” in the tank when they toed the start line) ignores athletes’ pacing strategies during the race. This is why the authors also examined the role of how much “large” (D’) athletes had left when they heard the bell for the final lap. I.e. the authors essentially asked:
What did athletes have left in the tank when all the “fast starts” and “mid-race surges” had occurred and, therefore, they had frequently danced above their critical speed, depleting D’?
It turned out that the finishing order in both the 5000m and 10,000m races was best predicted by who had the most D’ left when they began the sprint for home with 400m to go (R2 = 0.95 in the 5000m and 0.94 in the 10,000m). These are impressive correlation coefficients since an R2 of 1 is a perfect relationship. Consequently, these findings help reiterate what I said earlier:
Better performing athletes have more large left to give for longer at the end of a long race.
×
![]()
If you’ve followed this series, you’ve learned that, during a race, your RPE will steadily rise to reach your maximal tolerable RPE. You also learned that starting out too fast will accelerate the rise in RPE, making you reach your maximal tolerable RPE sooner. Excellent pacing judgement is essential and you must time your final surge very carefully otherwise Lord Fader, the Sith Lord of Fatigue, may come for you before the finish line. The study I just described, further emphasises this point by showing us that world-class runners who spent more time above their critical speed early in the race had less D’ in the tank available for the final sprint for the line.
Would better pacing have helped them?
Probably. But, we can’t be sure because Doc’s DeLorean can’t take the athletes back to rerun the 2017 World Champs finals.
What is certain is that when your RPE is rising towards your maximal tolerable effort level, you want it to feel good rather than bad. A wise pacing strategy can certainly help with that. I have hundreds of anecdotal observations from myself and my athletes when a high RPE hurt like hell after starting out like a space rocket and eventually running the same race time as a previous occasion when starting out with less haste and the same level of during-race effort felt amazing. Fun anecdotes that teach us a lot
What can you add to your “sprint for the line” toolbox?
Maximal sprint speed, velocity at V̇O2max, speed reserve, and your capacity above critical speed (D’) are all physiological determinants of your sprint for the line. But, being endowed with the motivation to push hard and the belief that you can win will also influence how much “large” you can unleash at the end of a race. All the while, your pacing strategy is another physiological determinant of what you will have left in the tank when the time comes to sprint for the line. But, your choice of pacing strategy is also influenced by your psychology and emotions, i.e. how motivated and emotionally intelligent are you to run your own race?As I said at the beginning, it is complicated. To ensure you always have something left in the tank and are successful with your race day sprint for the line, you need many skills. You need endurance. You need speed. You need motivation and self-belief. You need tactical savvy and a generous portion of emotional intelligence. But wise coaches and athletes already knew these things. If you didn’t, now you do.
No matter what explains why there is always something left in the tank, one thing is for sure… Next time a hungry crocodile swings out of the trees and starts chasing you, always give it large!
Until that time, stay nerdy and keep empowering yourself to be the best athlete you can be by training smart…
Thanks for joining me for another “session”. I am passionate about equality in access to free education. If you find value in my content, please help keep it alive by sharing it on social media and buying me a beer at buymeacoffee.com/thomas.solomon. For more knowledge, join me @thomaspjsolomon on Twitter, follow @veohtu on Facebook and Instagram, subscribe to my free email updates at veothu.com/subscribe, and visit veohtu.com to check out my other Articles, Nerd Alerts, Free Training Tools, and my Train Smart Framework. To learn while you train, you can even listen to my articles by subscribing to the Veohtu podcast.
Disclaimer: I occasionally mention brands and products but it is important to know that I am not affiliated with, sponsored by, an ambassador for, or receiving advertisement royalties from any brands. I have conducted biomedical research for which I have received research money from publicly-funded national research councils and medical charities, and also from private companies, including Novo Nordisk Foundation, AstraZeneca, Amylin, A.P. Møller Foundation, and Augustinus Foundation. I’ve also consulted for Boost Treadmills and Gu Energy on their research and innovation grant applications and I’ve provided research and science writing services for Examine — some of my articles contain links to information provided by Examine but I do not receive any royalties or bonuses from those links. These companies had no control over the research design, data analysis, or publication outcomes of my work. Any recommendations I make are, and always will be, based on my own views and opinions shaped by the evidence available. My recommendations have never and will never be influenced by affiliations, sponsorships, advertisement royalties, etc. The information I provide is not medical advice. Before making any changes to your habits of daily living based on any information I provide, always ensure it is safe for you to do so and consult your doctor if you are unsure.
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About the author:
I am Thomas Solomon and I'm passionate about relaying accurate and clear scientific information to the masses to help folks meet their fitness and performance goals. I hold a BSc in Biochemistry and a PhD in Exercise Science and am an ACSM-certified Exercise Physiologist and Personal Trainer, a VDOT-certified Distance running coach, and a Registered Nutritionist. Since 2002, I have conducted biomedical research in exercise and nutrition and have taught and led university courses in exercise physiology, nutrition, biochemistry, and molecular medicine. My work is published in over 80 peer-reviewed medical journal publications and I have delivered more than 50 conference presentations & invited talks at universities and medical societies. I have coached and provided training plans for truck-loads of athletes, have competed at a high level in running, cycling, and obstacle course racing, and continue to run, ride, ski, hike, lift, and climb as much as my ageing body will allow. To stay on top of scientific developments, I consult for scientists, participate in journal clubs, peer-review papers for medical journals, and I invest every Friday in reading what new delights have spawned onto PubMed. In my spare time, I hunt for phenomenal mountain views to capture through the lens, boulder problems to solve, and for new craft beers to drink with the goal of sending my gustatory system into a hullabaloo.
Copyright © Thomas Solomon. All rights reserved.
I am Thomas Solomon and I'm passionate about relaying accurate and clear scientific information to the masses to help folks meet their fitness and performance goals. I hold a BSc in Biochemistry and a PhD in Exercise Science and am an ACSM-certified Exercise Physiologist and Personal Trainer, a VDOT-certified Distance running coach, and a Registered Nutritionist. Since 2002, I have conducted biomedical research in exercise and nutrition and have taught and led university courses in exercise physiology, nutrition, biochemistry, and molecular medicine. My work is published in over 80 peer-reviewed medical journal publications and I have delivered more than 50 conference presentations & invited talks at universities and medical societies. I have coached and provided training plans for truck-loads of athletes, have competed at a high level in running, cycling, and obstacle course racing, and continue to run, ride, ski, hike, lift, and climb as much as my ageing body will allow. To stay on top of scientific developments, I consult for scientists, participate in journal clubs, peer-review papers for medical journals, and I invest every Friday in reading what new delights have spawned onto PubMed. In my spare time, I hunt for phenomenal mountain views to capture through the lens, boulder problems to solve, and for new craft beers to drink with the goal of sending my gustatory system into a hullabaloo.
Copyright © Thomas Solomon. All rights reserved.