Lactate Threshold

Lactate Threshold (LT) refers to the speed at which you can run without the levels of lactic acid beginning to build up in your muscles or blood.  LT has been called the single biggest determining factor in how well an athlete can run in a distance race.

Time to develop: Years

Why didn't I write about LT first? Although LT is a hugely important factor in distance running success, LT workouts are more strenuous and have the possibility of becoming WAY harder than they need to be if athletes aren't honest with themselves about their effort levels.  Plus, when young runners do easy or moderate distance runs, they improve their LT a little bit anyway.


The above chart shows the blood lactate curves for two different hypothetical runners.  Runner A has the blood lactate profile of someone who can run 5k somewhere in the mid 20:00 minute range.  Runner B has the blood lactate profile of someone who can run a 5k somewhere in the mid 16:00 minute range.  If these are high school boys, Runner A is going to be buried in the pack at the TVL Championship Meet and Runner B is a potential TVL Champion.

Bear in mind, These curves are hypothetical based on numbers that I just made up.  However, there are a couple of things I want you to notice about this graph because the numbers I made up are based on well established research on how people build up blood lactate as they run.

• Notice that for both athletes, at slower speeds, their blood lactate levels are fairly low and the levels do not increase that quickly
• As the speed increases their blood lactate approaches 4.0 millimoles per deciliter (mmol/dl)
• After 4.0 mmol/dl, both athletes' blood lactate levels begin to rise quickly.  This is the pace that is generally referred to as the athletes Lactate Threshold
• Runner A reaches his lactate threshold at a pace somewhere around 7:00 per mile while runner B reaches his LT at around 6:00 per mile. 
• At paces faster than Lactate Threshold blood lactate levels rise very sharply and the athlete fatigues quickly.

How do we train LT to be higher?

The answer is simple.....train at a pace that is near LT and teach your body to spend a lot of time in that effort zone.  

There are 3 paces that we will use that are all right in the neighborhood of your LT. As of right now, we don't have the equipment to actually measure your individual blood lactate curves, so you will have to be able to FEEL the paces rather than accurately measure the paces.  Here are the paces and how you should FEEL at those paces:

• Steady State: This pace is just below the LT.  You should be able to feel that you are running fast, but should not be feeling any discomfort (burning legs, being out of breath, etc...).  An elite marathoner can run an entire marathon at this pace.  An experienced college runner might hold this pace for an hour in a hard training run.  You all should be aiming to be able to run 30-40 minutes at this effort level.
• Threshold: This pace is the pace that makes your blood lactate levels rise to 4.0 mmol/dl.  This pace is only slightly faster than steady, but may feel quite a bit harder. A well trained runner would only be able to hold this effort level in an all out race for around an hour. For a world class runner, this might be 1/2 marathon race pace.  For a good high school runner this might equal about 45 seconds per mile slower than 5k race pace. Because the pace feels so much harder, I will only ask you to run at this pace for around 18:00-25:00 minutes.  
• Critical Velocity (CV): CV is a newer term for a pace that people have known to train at for a long time.  This pace is slightly faster than LT and will therefore cause lactate levels to rise fairly quickly.  Trying to run 20:00-30:00 minutes at CV pace would be almost as hard as a race. Because of this, we will only do CV paced training in the form of intervals. Each of these intervals will last somewhere between 4:00-6:00 and the total number of minutes at CV pace for a given workout will equal 20:00-25:00 total minutes. For an elite runner, CV pace might be somewhere between 10k race pace and 1/2 marathon race pace.  For most of you CV pace is probably equal to a pace 20 seconds per mile slower than 5k race pace. 

For help determining the pace that you should run at, use Tinman's Running Calculator .  Please note: Where Tinman uses the term tempo we will use the term steady state

For fun, compare the pace you ran on our last steady state run to the pace that you should have been at based on your PRs and figure out how far away from track season's peak you were.

Steady State Paces, 6/18/18

• Austin - 6:16
• J.P. - 6:46
• Murphy - 7:24
• Dario - 7:30
• Emily F. - 7:30
• Trace - 7:36
• Elizette - 7:54
• Jessie - 7:56
• Tanner - 8:21
• Blanca - 8:40
• Briana - 8:47
• Emely H - 8:59
• Katelyn - 9:03
• Erick - 9:30