323. The Theory of Zone Compression, Surgery (Oh No), What Comes Next, and The New Big Supplement!

Now, a quick discussion on zone compression theory, and I wanted to talk about this on the podcast because we've teased it for a while.

And on Patreon last week, uh, we did a champion plan for half marathon to marathon that shows how this works in practice.

Like, everything we're talking about now, you can go look at that plan, just dig into the little details, and see, what does this actually look like in the field? Um, and the, the reason that this has become so much at the forefront of our minds is as we're trying to guide these athletes to unthinkable places, right? Like, maybe even Olympic medals if we play our cards right.

The idea is, okay, well, how is that possible? And the answer is you're able to push harder in terms of a physiological sense for longer.

That's the very simple way to put it.

Um, and how do you do that? I think that digs into the basic idea of zone compression.

And I think training theory in many ways accounts for this, but doesn't talk about the effect of accounting for it, and I think when you talk about it, there can actually be some slight wrinkles in training theory-

Yeah

... that you're like, "Oh, this actually improves zone compression." But I think for us, this has been a big conversation since coaching athletes that are performing at the top level in the road marathon, because there you're essentially compressing or trying to compress LT2 into marathon pace.

Yeah, so making one hour effort, a threshold effort, be sustainable for two plus hours, like two to, for these athletes, two hours 20 minutes for the women.

Um, and that's a tricky ... qu- scientific question, right? Like LT2, this, uh, the turning point for threshold where s- efforts get less sustainable, basically holding that for a time that does not seem rational.

Um, and that's a really clear way of looking at zone compression.

But it also applies in other places.

So in half marathon, you'd have VO2 compressed up into LT2, so something that's sustainable for 10 to 15 minutes up into an hour.

Um, and for ultras, this is the place I've had a lot of experience.

You're trying to compress LT2 or marathon pace, so like something within that general framework, into LT1 or the top end of zone two.

So making these harder efforts actually way more sustainable.

And by the time I got to the 100-mile start lines, I was able to run 5:30 pace at altitude and probably 5:15 to 5:20 pace at sea level in the top end of zone two.

And the weird part is, my LT2, so my one-hour pace, would make zero sense.

And so I think when people said, like on Ritual I said my zone two was one of the, I think I said 5:45, and I've gotten more confident with them since I've gotten a lot more data.

I remember actually after Ritual you panicked-

Yeah

... and you were like, "Is that number okay?"

Well, and I thought people were gonna just hate me for saying it, right?

But it's true.