Jake Lowe's marathon preparation video transcript

10 seconds left!

So I'm targeting the Manchester Marathon next April

and to train with accuracy and ensure that

I increase the chance of me achieving my goal

and reduce the risk of injury, it's really important

that I underpin my training with some science.

3, 2, 1...

So the guys are constantly asking me,

at the end of every stage, which is three minutes,

how I'm feeling and then

they triangulate those three bits of information:

so how I'm feeling, the level of a blood lactate

that's been produced and accumulated in my blood,

and also my heart rate.

So this is not a maximal effort test.

Although we keep putting the treadmill up

(the speed, the intensity)

once the guys have got the data

from my blood, that they need,

the test is effectively over.

So you do go to a hard level,

what we refer to as a comfortably hard level,

but it's not an out an out maximum test.

They're not aiming to get me off the back of the treadmill.

But once you reach that point where we have the information,

if you want to continue to push on,

all that does is give us more data to work with.

But that's more about choice

rather than having to go to that level.

Great work, Jake! You got this, well done!

The main thing we're looking for from the test

when we get people on the treadmill,

is two jumps in their what we call blood lactate.

So everybody produces lactate in the body all the time

and at low levels of intensity, like talking to you now,

it doesn't cause a problem in the body.

It only causes a problem

when the amount of lactate being produced increases

and our body struggles to process it and use it,

so it starts to affect the muscle contraction.

It's that feeling when people run

and they start to breath much harder

and they just know they're going to slow down.

So if we can find out exactly

which heart rates and speeds those points occur,

we can then program effectively for them

so they increase their chances of achieving their goal.