I recently enroled on a free course called "health for life" run by the local council. It's a basic course on the different aspects of physical fitness. Anyhow...you are required to keep a daily diary of any excercise you engage in. Before you do this though you are asked to pick one of several stamina tests to complete which you repeat six weeks later, obviously to see if you are getting fitter! One of the tests is called the "Cooper twelve minute run". Basically you run for twelve minutes and make a note of how far you get and then repeat it six weeks later to see if you have improved. However there are five ratings given relating to how far you get in those twelve minutes. These are:
Excellent: above 1.75 miles
Good: 1.56 - 1.75 miles
Average: 1.43 - 1.56 miles
Poor: 1.43 - 1.37 miles
Very poor: below 1.37 miles
Now as an average 9 minute miler this puts me in the "very poor" catagory!
To make matters worse I double checked it by running on a treadmill for 12 minutes to see how far I got, my 2.0 km is in the Very poor: below 2200 metres catagory. Now I know I am no racing snake, but I have run several marathons, 1/2 marathons 10ks etc and ran what I thought were decent times for my age (49 yrs) of 4:22 for the marathon, and 52 minutes for a 10k, but according to this course I am lucky I can get off the starting block!!! When doing the 12 minute test by the way, they state that you can "walk, jog or run, or a combination of these." This course is for general Joe public but according to the course to get an average score in the test you have to be an 8 minute miler at least!!
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If you have sufficient stamina to keep going for over four hours then you're well above average fitness wise (but then you knew that!)
So even though I ran up quickest, I was the skinniest and therefore the least powerful, and the teacher made some patronising remark about us "non-athletic types". Grrrr...
The 'load of bollox' I was referring to is the implication that there is a single universal measure for fitness based upon your pace over a relatively short period of time. There's been an ongoing debate for some time as to whether or not the finishers at the front of a race are any 'fitter' than those towards the back or whether they are simply better suited physiologically to covering the distance.
Being fit can mean anything anyway. Was Linford Christie fit when he won the 100metres gold medal? - damn right he was, but could he have run a marathon in a decent time - probably not.
I get more satisfaction out of my aerobic level of fitness than anything else.
I would use the following test as a guage to your fitness and how it is improving.
1. Get a heart rate monitor.
2. Run 5k on a track at bang on 70%MHR
3. Note the time it takes you.
2. Repeat the above every 4-6 weeks.
As fitness improves your should run the 5k quicker at the same heart rate.
Second, Vo2 max results tend to be seriously misinterpreted (not least as a measure of potential) because they do not take running economy into account. A lower Vo2 max combined with outstanding running economy will produce better times (in general) than a higher Vo2 max and poor running form.
So pursuit of improved Vo2 max on its own as a predictor of likely improvement (in fitness, or otherwise) is plain wrong. Frank Shorter is always used as the best example of a world class runner who did not have a particularly high Vo2 max.
(For those who want more details in general, source: Noakes).