How to Run a Lactate Clearance Workout

Audio Transcript

Michael: Hey Runners Connect fans. Today we have a question from Nathan.

Nathan: What is the purpose of lactate clearance workouts?

That’s a great question.

It’s a commonly misunderstood workout. A lot of people look at it and don’t really understand what it’s about. They don’t know what it’s doing for them, and the fact that it’s pretty hard, makes that kind of uncomfortable.

You don’t want to look at a workout that’s hard and not know why you’re doing it.

First, a quick intro to lactate commonly referred to as lactic acid.

Those two are interchangeable. In excess, this is what causes you to slow down at the end of the races. When you’re doing the skeleton dance at the end of a race, that’s because you have a huge buildup of lactate.

Lactate can also be used as a source of energy. Your body breaks down glucose for energy.

Lactate is a by-product of that process, so when you’re running easy for instance, that’s a by-product of that glucose being broken down.

It’s going to get recycled into energy. This carries away, what are called hydrogen ions, which are the real culprit of muscle fatigue. It’s not really lactic acid; it’s those hydrogen ions.

When you’re running easy, that lactate recycles into actual energy, carries away those hydrogen ions and prevents fatigue.

When you’re running faster, longer, harder, either workouts or races, your lactate’s going to increase. The body is unable to convert it back to energy properly, and the lactate thus cannot carry out the hydrogen ions.

That causes you to slow down. There’s a little primer on lactate. The question is, how do we optimize this in training?

We don’t want to necessarily reduce lactate production because as we just saw, it’s very beneficial.

What you want to do is you want to improve your body’s ability to clear lactate from the blood; that’s the key.

If the body can better utilize higher levels of lactate, then it’s going to take you a lot longer to fatigue, which is huge.

The lactate clearance workout, here’s an example, just to kind of give you an idea of what we’re talking about, you can do, obviously one or two mile warmup.

An example of a workout that we do, this is probably for about a 3:30 marathon is, you’ll do two times three miles.

On each three mile segment, you’ll do the first two miles at 7:20 pace, and then you’ll do the last mile at 7:50 pace.

Again, you do a three mile interval, miles one and two, at 7:20 pace. Then you do the third mile at 7:50 pace, so you’re going on hard and selling in.

You do that twice, so three miles, then three miles both on the same way. Take about three minutes rest between the intervals and then you get a little cool down.

The objective of the workout is to start fast and then settle in. Let’s compare this really quick to a normal tempo run or a threshold workout, because you’re probably asking, “What’s the benefit of this? Why is it better than just a normal tempo run or a normal threshold workout?”

When talking about tempos, we’re talking about a four or five mile tempo run, or a five times one mile threshold run; those are done at a very steady pace.

They definitely help optimize lactate clearance, but the clearance workout is much more specific.

It gets right at the objective that we’re trying to accomplish, so you’re going to spike that lactate with those faster miles.

We’re typically going to do those faster miles somewhere around 10K pace, kind of depending on where you are on your training, but usually close to 10K pace.

Then you settle to a nice reasonable pace, either half marathon or a marathon pace, again kind of depending on where you are on your training and how experienced you are.

An added benefit is that it helps you get very comfortable at half marathon or full marathon pace.

Everyone who’s done this workout knows that when you go those first couple miles really fast, and then also when you do that last mile or two at half or full marathon pace, it feels really slow.

It feels really easy, and that can also help boost your confidence too, in knowing that that pace really isn’t that fast; you just have to be able to maintain it for so long.

That’s a little added benefit there, but either way, we’re spiking the lactate with those faster miles and then we’re settling in to a more reasonable pace.

Some recommended workouts: if this is your first time doing a workout like this, we don’t want to jump in to anything too terribly hard.

You want to take it pretty conservatively at first. A good example workout for a first timer would be to get a one mile warm-up.

You always want to make sure you get a good warmup and cool down, at least a mile minimum. Get a mile warm-up then do one set.

You’re not going to do sets of these, just do one set, one mile at 10K pace, then, one mile at marathon pace.

I know that seems kind of silly, but it’s just really short. It’s a good introduction and it will get your body used to what we’re trying to do, then get yourself a one mile cool down.

For people who’ve done workouts like this, you’re going to get a mile warmup, and then you’re going to do two times one mile at around 10K pace, and then two miles at marathon pace.

We’re getting one mile at that 10K pace, and then two mile at marathon pace, but we’re repeating that. We’re doing two sets of that, then make sure you get one mile cool down or so.

For more intermediate runners, runners who’ve done these workouts several times before, at least 30, 35-ish miles a week, we’re going to look at doing about a two mile warm up.

Two times two miles at 10K pace, then one mile at either half marathon or full marathon pace.

If you can work it down to half marathon pace, that’s great. Otherwise, if it’s more comfortable to do it a little bit slower, maybe towards marathon pace at first, that’s fine, but eventually you want to be working down towards those about half a marathon pace.

For our really experienced people, it’s always going to be, two times two miles at 10K pace, one mile at right around half marathon pace.

So, three mile intervals two of them, first two miles out fast, 10K pace and then the last mile at half marathon pace.

You‘re going to want to start slow as this is a tough session and you don’t want to overdo it the first couple times you do it. However, it’s a very beneficial workout that can help improve your body’s ability to clear lactic acid.

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Have a great run today.