i'm trying to think of a little framework in which to think about these tradeoffs between, say, "ultramarathon prowess" and "freakish strength". the model that comes to mind is that of the "production possibilities frontier".
however, my hunch is that the PPF actually looks more like the usual rounded one. or possibly it even bends around backward close to the axes meaning that the best strength performance does not occur by completely ignoring running, but requires a tiny bit of running. and, the other way at the other end of the curve.
of course, we'll never really know the shape of that thing without trying to map it out somehow. and, gathering the data (even on one's self) would be highly problematic. still, i think i can happily confuse my model for reality and say that it feels like it really makes sense that there is way more complementarity between these activities that we have been crediting them with (despite being hopelessly optimistic compared to the mainstream fitness propaganda).
my tiny datapoint that i submit in support of this hypothesis is that recently i have been doing more squats with more weight on more days as well as running more miles on more days (and this is on a 2-week timescale) and the result has been that i am running faster than ever. for example, yesterday, i thought i wasn't feeling that great due to sleep deprivation and running really fast the previous day, so i thought i would take it easy. then i looked down and my GPS and was running, uh, way fast: much faster than it felt like. so i decided to go for it and ran my second fastest mile ever as part of an overall pretty fast run.
maybe that's the genius behind training camps (not that i've ever been to one). not so much that you learn new tricks or eat fancy foods, but that you actually *do* something every day for the duration of the event. and strangely, if you have any aptitude or potential and do something repeatedly, there is a good chance that you get better at it. magic!
again, all these wonderful things are probably happening because i am far from the production possibilities frontier (and tailwinds and warm weather). but, they encourage me into thinking that the PPF is farther out and has more interesting mixes available than i previously thought.
I'm still trying to wrap my head around this. Can you draw me a picture or graph?
I think I get it overall, and I'm trying to think where I read a similar article about a decathlon training. Its very likely much more dependent on how many things you are focusing on as well.
So if you simply focus on running a mile and lifting I suspect you can get a lot further along that focusing on 10 different distances of running and lifting. If you know what I mean.
So now I have to ask you a question, how hard are your squats in general, and in comparison to your deadlift and how hard was the sub six mile? I'm wondering if maybe in the squat there is a sweet spot rate of perceived exertion that works really well with running, and vice versa?