posted Jun-05-2005 08:45 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by kzod:
Thanks Jesse,

Never tested my max, but the highest I've ever been able to get my HR is 175 while running. On the flip side my rhr is quite low @42. Maf for me is 146, but I'm getting fit enough that I may add that extra 5 in there for my next bday. The hardest I pushed my HR in a half was staying mostly around 160, finishing around 170. But, even in a recent 5k my average was 164. So, I'm getting better at pushing my limits and pace in the shorter runs.

As long as my 5k and 10k times keep progressing I'm happy. And I admit my priority in the halfs is finishing strong. I hate getting passed at the end of a race! I do have a goal race in sept as I said, and that one I'll push myself into the higher zones and try to see what I can truly do.

---

Yeah, I feel the same way. I love finishing strong and feeling good
at the end of a race, even if my result is conservative. As long as
things improve, I'm happy. That's why I post all of this jibberish.
Until I started the HR training, I never knew what that feeling was. I
always felt like crap after races, no matter what, and training was almost
as bad. I've shifted a lot of my anaerobic stuff to aerobic and it's
a great feeling. It's sort of like adding an additional gas tank. But
it takes time, patience, and the ability to swallow your pride. In
the old days, I was hesitant about making my running log public if
my average pace ever became slower than about 8:50 per mile. Now,
I couldn't care less if my average pace shows at 10, 11, or even
12 minutes per mile! It's meaningless.

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posted Jun-06-2005 02:54 AM               

THanks!

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posted Jun-06-2005 05:24 AM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by angus171:
Sorry if it's already been asked, but...
Jesse, you say your training times used to be 8:50m/mile-ish, and are now 10-12ish. What have your race paces done during this time? I understand fully that you are enjoying running more and are now a more 'efficient' runner (at a particular HR), but is this reflected in dropping race times?
As a younger runner (17!) I am more focussed on enjoying running AND posting as good a race time as possible, so I'd like a balance between the various HR levels/zones in training (tho aerobically, I still basically suck - avg. 147HR gets me 12:00min/mile roughly! OUCH!), but on the flipside I've only been physically active for about a year (always too uncoordinated with ball-sports!).
Anyways, sorry for the ramble there. Just trying to work out if this whole Maffetone thing is really what I want to be getting into, or if the more tradition HRM training (i.e. Daniels etc.?) is what I should be looking at.

THanks!

---

Hi! This is just pasted out of my long diatribe in the first
message in this thread:
"1 mile race improved from 5:56 - 5:36. 5k: 21:06 - 20:39,
10k: 47:46 - 45:21, marathon from 4:03 - 3:54."
This was after 8 weeks of low heart rate training. You should
read as much of the first message as you can tolerate if you
are interested. I should mention, however, that all of the
empirical data on these approaches (Maffetone, Hadd, etc.)
point towards results for people over 18 and they have said
that the results are arbitrary for those under 18. Nonetheless,
there are probably elements of this training that may be useful
for you. As a side note, if you are 17, your MAF heart rate
would be high in the 150s or in the 160s, so I'm not sure what
the meaning of 147 heart rate is - that sounds extremely low
for a 17 year old and it doesn't surprise me that it would be
dead slow, even walking.

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posted Jun-06-2005 08:40 AM               

If you are in relatively good shape, then you might benefit from a more conventional training program, focusing one day on speed, one on hills, one LSD, etc...

As far as racing conservatively, that depends on the distance of the race. I can still barely believe that I can even cover 13.1 miles, much less race it! I also know how much I hate going out too fast and bonking at the end of any races. Lets just say I have this recurring nightmare of a 70 year old grandmother on crutches beating me at the end of a 5k... So, as far as enjoyment goes I tend to recommend staying just under your limit untill you KNOW that you can start flying with no fear of crashing.

Whatever shape you are in, trust me reach for your potential now and find a race that you can do every year untill you are dead! It's no fun trying to get back into shape when you are 35!

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posted Jun-06-2005 10:30 AM               

So anyways, like I said earlier, HR training is a great way to start, especially to build a solid aerobic base. You're short distances will probably not get too much faster. Where you will see the improvements are in the longer distances.

For example if you plug my half marathon time (1:29) into McMillan you will see that I should run a 10k in 40:00, yet my 10k PR is 40:44. My 5k time should be 19:15, while I've only run a 19:26. If you want to increase speed overall, you will need to incorporate speedwork into it. Especially lactate threshold runs. At least, those are what have worked wonders for me.

I guess the biggest way to see hr improvement is to look at longer runs and the hr you maintain. Here's examples from my log (I tried to pick average temp runs on the same course)...

Middle Distance

June 12, 2004 (before my hr training) (12 miles 8:01/avg 157)
1-8.11/140 2-8.14/151 3-8.02/151 4-7.40/158 5-8.05/155 6-7.54/157 7-8.05/155 8-8.05/158 9-8.02/160 10-7.58/164 11-7.57/164 12-7.58/169

July 3rd, 2004 (beginning of hr training) (12.67 miles 9:28/avg 143)
1-9.24/130 2-9.16/137 3-9.09/138 4-9.33/139 5-9.34/137 6-9.38/138 7-9.31/142 8-9.20/144 9-9.13/148 10-9.21/150 11-9.31/152 12-9.45/153 .67-6.40/155

Sept 7, 2004 (11 miles 8:26/ avg 142)
1.9.30/128 2-8.56/135 3-8.48/140 4-8.37/142 5-8.19/145 6-7.47/150 7-8.26/148 8-7.02/144 9-8.29/145 10-8.27/144 11-8.27/146

April 21, 2005 (11 miles 8:08/143)
1-8.13/139 2-8.08/145 3-8.05/143 4-8.02/142 5-8.12/144 6-8.05/145 7-7.59/144 8-8.12/144 9-8.13/143 10-8.09/142 11-8.12/143

Long distance

April 10, 2004 (20 miles)(8:50/151)
1-9.12/137 2-9.02/142 3-9.15/142 4-9.21/144 5-8.55/146 6-8.51/145 7-8.51/147 8-8.55/146 9-8.48/147 10-9.04/145 11-8.34/150 12-9.13/151 13-8.48/155 14-8.27/159 15-8.48/156 16-8.38/155 17-8.41/159 18-8.34/163 19-8.19/168 20-8.16/170

Aug 28, 2004 (20.5 miles)(8:54/151)
1-9.21/131 2-9.02/139 3-8.55/144 4-9.11/142 5-9.27/144 6-8.49/144 7-9.08/145 8-8.59/143 9-9.09/146 10-9.06/146 11-8.52/144 12-9.06/148 13-8.48/150 14-8.44/155 15-8.44/156 16-8.27/161 17-8.46/162 18-8.51/167

April 30, 2005 (24 miles) (8:28/avg 141)
1-9.00/128 2-9.09/135 3-8.23/134 4-8.15/139 5-8.27/140 6-8.23/138 7-8.27/139 8-8.19/139 9-8.19/138 10-8.23/138 11-8.30/133 12-8.27/144 13-8.34/140 14-8.19/141 15-8.45/135 16-8.30/139 17-8.50/149 18-8.19/144 19-8.12/148 20-8.23/149 21-8.16/147 22-8.29/150 23-8.19/150 24-8.16/153

I pretty much did all the hr training the last six months of last year, this year I've incorporated Pfitzinger into the equation.

Hopefully this helps.

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posted Jun-06-2005 12:34 PM               

If you have only been running a few years, I believe it's very difficult to ascertain what is the best training for yourself. Yet, one can't ignore the words, wisdom, and hard scientific work of the long-time runners and scientists.

In March 2004, as a relative beginner (1 year of running and racing experience), I embarked on a journey with some training ideas using HRM as the main tool for monitoring exertion and improvement. The idea was to run at two different HR's. One was a recovery HR (65-70% MHR), and the other, a higher HR at 75-80%MHR. At certain points, I added higher heart rates in a step-type fashion, getting up to a marathon HR (taken from the Hadd articles and Team Oregon Pace Wizard) I upped my mileage to 60-73 MPW over 6 months.

This all led up to a first marathon on Oct 31, 2004--achieving a time of 4:14. I was happy to finish, but really thought I would do better.

After the marathon, during the next two months of Nov. and Dec. I made significant PR's at 5k, 5m, and 10k distances.

In late January this year (2005 for the hungover), I started a different training program taken from the book "Advanced Marathoning" by Pfitzinger and Douglas. There were two major goals: a half marathon in March, and the Vermonty City Marathon in May. Still using a HRM as a measurement tool, I upped my mileage to 55-65 MPW. The program included:

--V02max intervals (On 3 occasions, I ran 6 x .5 mile workouts at 5k race pace or 94-98% MHR )

--Lactate threshold runs (30-40 minutes at 15k race pace or 87-90% MHR). On a bi-weekly basis.

--medium long runs and long runs at 73-83% MHR

--Recovery runs at 75% MHR and below

--2 marathon race pace tempo runs. 12 of 17 miles, and 14 of 15 miles.
I chose a marathon pace based on the Team Oregon and MacMillan calculators. I used whatever the latest PR was as the benchmark. I considered this a dream pace that would only happen under ideal conditions, as the races it was based on were done in cold weather.I figured I'd probably be a little slower when the marathon came.

--tune-up races 5m and 10k distance. (all-out speeds)

I always ran an even pace during all runs. I ran a pace that brought my HR to near the top of the zone by the time the run was completed. During medium and long runs, I would run a speed that brought me to almost the top by 3/4's of the run. The last 1/4 of the run, I would either get 10% faster, or run at marathon race pace. I'd let my HR go where it wanted. Generally, it wouldn't go over the zone by much, and the marathon pace tended to equal the marathon HR zone laid out in the Hadd program. I found that the 15k and 5k race paces brought my HR to proper zones dictated in the program.

Well this program produced the following:

An 8:00 PR in the half marathon (1:46 to 1:38--same course)

A 29:00 PR in the marathon (4:14 to 3:45).

Very happy.

Just looking at the results, one might conclude that Pfitzinger and all it's varying speeds in training is superior to any program that is based on just running in lower aerobic zones. Yet, my improvement could partially be attributed to 6 months more experience and development. Would these PR's have happened if I stuck to the prior program? I can't say. The only way to find out would be to keep alternating programs and to measure a trend over time. Not an experiment I feel like doing.

What I found out by myself doing the Pfitzinger training was that I really enjoy the variety of a training program that incudes speeds and HR zones that go from the recovery zone to the vo2max. It's a lot more fun.
And there are good results that can't be denied.

Just as I developed speed, without a rise in HR, in the Hadd zones, I found the same thing happened with the Pfitzinger zones. I got faster in every zone, including lactate threshold runs and v02max.

I think the Pfitzinger method trains the mind as well. Teaches you to keep an even pace, and to dig deeper in the last miles of a long run; helping to deal with discomfort while maintaining pace.

I also had good results from just working the lower zones with the Hadd method. Though the fact that I also raised my mileage base to 60-73 mpw cannot be ignored as a major factor. I have seen in post after post on the 3 HR threads that people who keep their mileage base low, like 10-30 mpw, don't find major progress with the lower HR method.

It wouldn't hurt anyone just starting out to just work on the aerobic or lower zones first--only because it slows you down until you develop your legs a bit--lowering the risk of injury in the early stages. The Maffetone zone will do this.

I also think I'm probably going to need different types of training at different times in my life. I'm very much into the idea of a 12 week period of just lower HR aerobic training every year. It adds variety to a yearly program, and I believe it helps to develop the aerobic system, and gives the legs a bit of recovery time.

Which brings me to one final thing. Many of the old-timers in my club run no more than 30 MPW training, but include a speed work out at the track along with a weekly race. The only thing slowing them down is aging. Many of them are still improving. Then there are the old-timers who still run 60-90 miles per week--still improving.

It's a great journey.

--Jimmy

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posted Jun-07-2005 01:56 PM               

Two questions for y'all

1) Since the weather is starting to heat up and gain humidity, today I increased my MHR by 5 beats. I arbitrarily came up with this # to offset the weather. Is this ok? Should it be more or less than 5?

2) How often should you guage your MHR? Is it a monthly thing to gauge improvements?

Thanks, run hard, be safe!!!

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posted Jun-07-2005 11:16 PM               

you need to wander over to letsrun.com then

because you spend way too much time here playing the resident cynic

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posted Jun-08-2005 12:19 AM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by baggio16:
I figured I'd post here again.

> snip <

I pretty much did all the hr training the last six months of last year, this year I've incorporated Pfitzinger into the equation.

Hopefully this helps.

---

Thanks for sharing. This is my intention and it is very similar to what
Jimmy has done as well. That is, take the time to build aerobic base at
exclusively low heart rates. This may be 8, 10, 12, 16, 26 weeks,
or whatever. You'll probably know when you get there. Then start
adding in whatever kind of speed work you want (assuming you
actually want to). If you read Hadd, Maffetone, and Lydiard
carefully, you will notice that they all recommend a strictly low
heart rate base-building period, generally of at least 12 weeks.
Low heart rate is defined differently with each approach, Hadd
being 70% HRMax, lower percentage if you have higher max
heart rates, based on some guidelines he provides; Maffetone
by his MAF HR formula; and Lydiard by some less crisply defined
guidelines. Note that for the basebuilding periods, Hadd and
Maffetone very clearly state that in order to see results you should
not add beats to account for more heat, humidity, or other
effects, but you should slow down. Hadd acknowledges that
for some, this may slow you to a walk, and if so, you can start
at a higher heart rate, in which case your improvements will be
limited (i.e., if you do all of your runs at around 75% HRMax
or 5 beats or so over MAF, you will not see the same progress
because your training will not be optimally into the aerobic region).
In this case, you will need a longer basebuilding period and once
you improve to the point where you don't need to walk, you should
go back down to the suggested low heart rate. I have definitely
noticed that progress is best at the lowest possible heart rate,
as long as I don't have to walk a lot. I have no idea how walking
a lot to control heart rate will affect progress. I suspect that if
you have to walk a significant amount, then you're much better
off starting at a higher heart rate and hopefully improving to where
you can reset to a lower target in a few weeks.

Here are a few other observational tidbits:
1. I was looking at the results my VO2Max test that I took just
before my accident. My VO2Max occurred at 6 min/mi, my
heart rate at 60% VO2Max was 144, and my anaerobic
threshold occurred at HR of 144 as well (I thought this was
very low). The test administrator told me that I should do
most of my runs at 144 or less for maximum aerobic benefit.
My MAF heart rate at the time was 145. I actually never
would have correlated AT with MAF heart rate as I thought
AT would be much higher. Recently, I had been using 145
as my MAF heart rate, as I was using before my accident.
However, I had been experiencing more heart rate climb
than expected over a run of a few miles. I went back to
the formula and noticed that I should have subtracted 5
beats due to the fact that I was overcoming a recent injury.
Fortunately, the runs I had done at under 145 had given me
some aerobic improvement, so moving to 140 has not been
so bad. Starting at 140, as long as I hydrate well, I see
little drift at all, even over 9 miles. This is now the HR that
I will focus on.

2. I had been noticing while swimming in a heated pool
that my easy pace heart rate would climb by about 10-15
beats after about 1 mile of swimiming. However, I
recently started swimming in the outdoor pools that have
opened (in which the water is still bitter cold) and my heart
rate does not climb at all after a mile of swimming. There's
no question how strong an effect cooling, or lack thereof,
has on heart rate after a long period of exercise.

3. I spoke to a friend of mine who runs dead on with me
in the mile race, but beats me by more and more as the
distance gets longer, running about a 3:10 marathon in
his second one. He wears a heart rate monitor, but really
just uses it as a novelty and doesn't train by it. His
training runs are about 5 beats under the MAF heart rate,
but that's about an 8 minute mile for him.

I'm on travel right now so my schedule is going to be thrown
off a bit, but sometime shortly I'll be posting my latest
progress results.

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posted Jun-08-2005 01:41 AM               

this is for sure one of the more interesting and well thought out threads and it's been great to read about the experiences of people as they try to improve their running speeds.

I've been running seriously for just over a year now (ran in high school and off and on though) and have been wondering about my short distance times vs. my longer distance times. I've done a 5:05 mile in the past, and my times during interval training indicate that a sub-5 minute mile is within my reach right now. Based on this, Mcmillan has me at a 2:48 marathon and a 1:20 half. Times for shorter distances are not great predictors for longer distances, but I can't escape this nagging feeling that I should be running faster times. My 1/2 marathon time is ~1:24 and I'm hoping to run sub-3 hours in an upcoming marathon (Grandma's).

Your thread has caused me to wonder if in fact I'm including speedwork too soon - I'm almost always doing intervals of some variety, as that was how we trained in high school for x-country. Without going into the details of determining the correct training pace (I'm pretty good at pacing, even without a heart rate monitor), I'm wondering if 8-12 weeks of base training, with no intervals, tempos, or farleks, would align my longer race times more closely with my shorter track times.

The other possibility is that I'm just better at the shorter distances, but I've always been a real slowpoke when it comes to the 100, 200, etc. and so I have a hard time believing that.

Either way, I think it's worth the experiment of removing speedwork...perhaps I should check back here 8-12 weeks after Grandma's!

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posted Jun-08-2005 08:39 AM               

In my opinion, 1:20 theoretical in a perfect environment vs. 1:24 real world time is pretty close.

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posted Jun-08-2005 01:15 PM               

36 yr old male, running steady for a couple of years, on/off for 10+.
Age group (35+) PRs:
5k - 20:20
10k - 43:58
10M - 1:14:14
1/2 - 1:49
26.2 - 3:43

Looking at these times, I've become convinced that I've never really built an appropriate base. Recently (March) ran the Shamrock Marathon, came up with the 3:43 and turned up hurt - strained groin and abdominal wall.

So after a few weeks of struggling with the injury a couple more weeks off and a couple of weeks of "pool running." I decided that I'd try training with a heartrate monitor.

Did a tough hill run to find MHR - got 185 bpm. I think resting heart rate is around 60 now.

I bought Parker's Heart Rate Training for the Compleat Idiot and am using the principles in his book. Here are the questions:
1) Should there be a marked difference between treadmill running and outdoor running - my recent 4 mi. 70%MHR treadmill run was in 37:21. Outside runs have been north of 10:30/mile.
2) What is your method for finding correct speed on the treadmill? Last run, I took it to about 8:40 pace to get to 70% then had to back it down to about 9:45 or so to level it out. Is this correct
3) Parker's book really doesn't allow for long runs in his schedules. I'd like to ramp that back up. I'm assuming 70%?

Sorry for the length and any help is appreciated.

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posted Jun-08-2005 08:25 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by Nathan Arizona:
I've just started this and would like some feedback. Here's my situation:

36 yr old male, running steady for a couple of years, on/off for 10+.
Age group (35+) PRs:
5k - 20:20
10k - 43:58
10M - 1:14:14
1/2 - 1:49
26.2 - 3:43

Looking at these times, I've become convinced that I've never really built an appropriate base. Recently (March) ran the Shamrock Marathon, came up with the 3:43 and turned up hurt - strained groin and abdominal wall.

So after a few weeks of struggling with the injury a couple more weeks off and a couple of weeks of "pool running." I decided that I'd try training with a heartrate monitor.

Did a tough hill run to find MHR - got 185 bpm. I think resting heart rate is around 60 now.

I bought Parker's Heart Rate Training for the Compleat Idiot and am using the principles in his book. Here are the questions:
1) Should there be a marked difference between treadmill running and outdoor running - my recent 4 mi. 70%MHR treadmill run was in 37:21. Outside runs have been north of 10:30/mile.
2) What is your method for finding correct speed on the treadmill? Last run, I took it to about 8:40 pace to get to 70% then had to back it down to about 9:45 or so to level it out. Is this correct
3) Parker's book really doesn't allow for long runs in his schedules. I'd like to ramp that back up. I'm assuming 70%?

Sorry for the length and any help is appreciated.

---

Sounds like you have a lot of similarities to me, but you
don't fall apart quite so badly as the distances extend
out. I'd be curious to know what your race performance
would be in the 1 mile, probably the about the same as
mine. Most treadmills are effectively
1-2% downhill compared to flat outdoor running. As you
are working to find that proper speed to be in the
zone on the treadmill, you should take the approach that
your first 2-3 miles are warmup and you should be
conservatively below your target, at least 5 beats. By
that point things should have stabilized and you can
slowly edge up the speed by 0.1 mph every 15 seconds
or so until you are just under the target.

Incidentally, I've
noticed since I've been doing all of my rebuilding on the treadmill,
one one of about 5 different treadmills that it's not unusual for
all of them to be off on calibration. You'll only be able to do it
for the specific treadmill. But, to be honest with you, if you're
in basebuilding mode, just keep your heart rate in the zone and
if you're doing Maffetone or Hadd progress tests, just make sure
you do those on the same treadmill or course (should really
be a track or other flat area if outside) and you'll be fine in
seeing how things are going. The 2004 Shamrock was the
race that told me that I really need to go back to the drawing
board and fix my training problems (4:23 after crossing the
halfway point at around 1:44). I planned to go back and kick
its butt this year but for my ice accident. If your max HR is
around 185, then Maffetone will give you a higher heart rate
for your aerobic zone than a %HRMax, probably 144 if you
want to be conservative or 149 if you consider that your injury
is just a natural consequence of running a hard marathon and
you have not lost much running fitness. Nonetheless, for
whichever heart rate you are using, it should not be drifting
up a lot over the course of several miles, assuming you
are hydrating well and temps are not unreasonably hot. I said
5-8 beats earlier, but I think that with proper re-hydration,
it shouldn't grow by more than 2 or 3 beats over 5 miles or
more.

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posted Jun-12-2005 10:15 PM               

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posted Jun-17-2005 10:09 AM               

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posted Jun-17-2005 01:26 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by leitnerj:
Just a brief note of progress. ...

---

I haven't been able to digest all your posts/progress but I'm interested as I've started (5 weeks ago) on HRM training.
I'm using Parker's "HRM Training for the Compleat Idiot".
When I first started with the 3 miles at <=70% HR, I was completing them in about 38 minutes. Now same 3 mile run, same HR effort, I'm finishing in about 35 minutes. Parker uses the Karvonen method for determining training zones.

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posted Jun-17-2005 08:34 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by joescool:
I haven't been able to digest all your posts/progress but I'm interested as I've started (5 weeks ago) on HRM training.
I'm using Parker's "HRM Training for the Compleat Idiot".
When I first started with the 3 miles at <=70% HR, I was completing them in about 38 minutes. Now same 3 mile run, same HR effort, I'm finishing in about 35 minutes. Parker uses the Karvonen method for determining training zones.

---

sounds good - keep posting your progress ...

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posted Jun-17-2005 08:42 PM               

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posted Jun-17-2005 08:46 PM               

Tomorrow morning doing 5 miles but outdoors this time! It will be interesting to see what the time difference will be. I'm in south Texas so it gets pretty hot out. I'm sure I'll have to slow it down, even walk some if I want to keep my HR down.

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posted Jun-17-2005 11:06 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by joescool:
Finished todays 3 mile run <70% in 34:06. Earlier this week a 5 mile run at the same <70% was done in 59:30. Both runs were on a treadmill at the gym.

Tomorrow morning doing 5 miles but outdoors this time! It will be interesting to see what the time difference will be. I'm in south Texas so it gets pretty hot out. I'm sure I'll have to slow it down, even walk some if I want to keep my HR down.

---

I'm here in Austin, and let me tell you, the heat outside is going to play hell with your heart rate. If you run hills at all I predict you will end up walking at times. Three months ago I was running 9:30 miles at <70% HRR, and now I'm struggling to keep them under 12:00. I'm recovering from an injury that had me sidelined for the better part of 3 months so I know I've lost a lot of fitness, but the heat is definitely a major factor. Run as early as possible, before dawn if you can, and keep well hydrated. Sounds like you're making good progress!

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posted Jun-19-2005 06:54 PM               

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posted Jun-20-2005 10:07 AM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by leitnerj:
Henceforth, I would qualify this race length even as
one where my max heart rate is my "long distance" max heart rate, in which I probably would have seen over 200 had I really pushed it to the limit. In case you don't recall or didn't read some of my earlier posts, the Hadd test, a 5k race, and my VO2Max test, all indicated max heart rates of 189-190, but in races 10 miles or longer, I've seen as high as 210, with gas left in the tank. Hence, at least for me, I've pointed out that I have "event specific" peak heart rates for short distance races and long distance races that differ. This is why I prefer the Maffetone approach, rather than others that depend specifically on %HRMax.

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Jesse -

This just confuses the hell out of me. Everything else I've read about HR monitor training indicates that your max HR is your max HR. If your HR peaks out at 210 during a race, then that is your HRMax,and that is what you base all of your training on. Use the incorrect HRMax and your training will be negatively affected across the board. But I've seen you post on several occasions that your HR Max varies, depening on the distance of the race. And I just . . . I mean . . . I don't . . . wtf? I see what you're saying - if your HR Max can vary so much, the Maffetone formula approach makes much more sense, but if your HR Max can vary so much, doesn't that bring into question the validity of HR training . . . period?

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[This message has been edited by justfartnolek (edited Jun-20-2005).]

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posted Jun-20-2005 10:39 AM            

Why don't you focus on that?

Suzette
Boston, MA

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posted Jun-20-2005 06:42 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by justfartnolek:
Jesse -

This just confuses the hell out of me. Everything else I've read about HR monitor training indicates that your max HR is your max HR. If your HR peaks out at 210 during a race, then that is your HRMax,and that is what you base all of your training on. Use the incorrect HRMax and your training will be negatively affected across the board. But I've seen you post on several occasions that your HR Max varies, depening on the distance of the race. And I just . . . I mean . . . I don't . . . wtf? I see what you're saying - if your HR Max can vary so much, the Maffetone formula approach makes much more sense, but if your HR Max can vary so much, doesn't that bring into question the validity of HR training . . . period?

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This is the exact reason why I switched to Maffetone style training.
Your max is your max, there's no doubt about that. However, there's
also no doubt that most people (if not all) have exercise-specific
"peak heart rates" that will vary between different exercises. It just
so happens that for me (and I would have to guess other people as
well) that I have different peak heart rates for long and short distance
runs. Distances less than about 5 miles (what's the cutoff? I have
no clue or time to experiment with that one), I hit right around 190
and I am about to throw up. And, in my VO2Max test which lasted
just under 21 minutes, I topped out at 189. There are other factors
that indicate that it wouldn't have gone any higher (i.e., I didn't
quit too soon), which are the VO2 profile and in particular a quantity
called RQ (which I have no recollection what it is). However, on
numerous occasions, on races between 10 and 17 miles (26.2 k
to be exact), I have seen a steady heart rate of 205-210 sustained
for quite a while. (I have not hit HRs that high in marathons or
ultras, but I think that's because I tend to run them differently).
There are many articles you can find online that portray exercise-
specific peak heart rates, most notably that frequently a peak heart
rate in a cycling VO2Max test will frequently be around 10 beats
under the peak for a running VO2Max test for a highly fit triathlete.
However, I confess I've never seen such a thing for two different
running distances. Here's a great article on this (but it doesn't
cover different running distances): Stephens.

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posted Jun-20-2005 06:53 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by CSuzette:
It seems to me that when you ran slower longer you saw a gain.

Why don't you focus on that?

Suzette
Boston, MA

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Absolutely, that is my focus. But, I should clarify, I put in more
mileage at lower intensity, but not always "slower." I always let
my pace pick up as my conditioning improved. As an example,
before I started HR training, I was doing long training runs at around
8:15/mile at the start, slowing to around 9:10-9:30 at the end, the
end pace varying based on temperature and other factors. My
heart rate would range from the high 160s to the 180s, and if it
was very hot or humid out, more hilly than usual, etc., I would
fizzle out before finishing the planned distance. My
shorter distance runs were about 7:45 - 8:15, with heart rates
up in the 170s usually. After the heart
rate training for about 6 weeks or so, my training runs were at
about an 8:45/pace, fairly consistent throughout the run as long
as I hydrated well, heart rate
less than 147, and I always finished my runs, never fizzling out,
no matter how high the heat. If very hot or humid, the pace would
be lower, as necessary. I was at the point where I would start
at HR of about 133 and let it go to 147 (which was my 70% point)
at the end.

In any case, that is indeed my focus. However, I put no restrictions
when racing, but I just kept in mind what my max was, and used it
to guide how much gas I had left in the tank. The tri I did yesterday
was a race, so that's the logic I used. This time around, as I rebuild
my conditioning, I am limiting my racing to a minimum, so as not
to interfere with the aerobic base building. However, the mini tri
just happened to appear and it was one of few opportunities I'd have
to do one with such short distances, to test the waters.

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