posted May-21-2006 10:01 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Noquickfix:
Will running/cycling above (way above) MAF a couple of times a month until October have drastic negative impacts on my aerobic base? Would it be better to only allow my heart rate to go to certain level then back down? During the race today I averaged 183 bpm. My MAF 146.

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congrats on the good result, especially right after a 20 miler. You've
put in enough MAF time that you're safe adding in some higher heart
rate runs and it shouldn't have a significant effect, as long as the
bulk of your runs and bikes are at MAF.

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posted May-22-2006 06:16 PM            

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posted May-22-2006 06:19 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by kcy1998:
I am enterning my 20th week of Maffing. My weekly mileage started out at 20 and is now @ 45. This week I hope to hit 50. This past week I ran a local 10K. My friend and I had planned on doing an 8 minute pace for the race.We were right on but at 5.25 he ran out of steam and I went ahead. I wound up with a time of 49:28 and an average pace of 07:51! For me this is good. No a PR but real close. The past week I added some strides after my Maf runs and back in April I ran a Half Marathon. When I started my Maf test had me running at a 14 minunte clip and now I am running at a 10:21 clip. All that I can say is I consider the 10k a success. I will continue Maffing until the middle of June when I start using Daniels for my fall marathon. As an experitment of one I believe that Maffing has worked for me.

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excellent - you're certainly going in the right direction. You've achieved
good pace improvement at low heart rates and you're now learning about
finishing races without pain. As you race more, you'll learn that you can
go faster and faster each time, still without pain!

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posted May-23-2006 11:54 AM            

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posted May-23-2006 12:08 PM               

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posted May-23-2006 12:24 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by d3finition:
hi jesse i have been maffing for quite a while and im currently at 20mpw and i was wondering how much base mpw should i go for if i wanna do a sub 44min for the 10k as an eventual goal?

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for some people, 44 minute for 10k is a walk in the park with no training,
for others, 1:10 is hard. Have you run any shorter races? There's no
specific mileage or training program that correlates with a specific time,
it's all individual. If you have any 1M, 2M, or 5k race times, that will
help figure out what you need to do. Do you have any opportunities
to work in a few races?

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posted May-23-2006 12:35 PM            

Have been MAF'ing for about 1 year with good progress. Started at 150 bpm upper limit last year with a pace of around 12 min/mile. Now down to 8:30 min/mile at 150 bpm. Have never run an organized race but I am scheduled for 1/2 marathon two weeks out and contemplating target pace.

Using Maffetone's chart for 5k predictions and plugging 21 minutes into 5k on McMillan's predicts I could hold a 7:25/mile pace for the half.

Knowing that I have completed the distance before MAF training in 1:43, I had originally targeted 1:45 as the overall goal. But seeing that it is predicted I could run better than that has me wondering what is sustainable.

Two months back, I started incorporating a 3 mile faster segment of a 6 mile run where I upped the pace to 7:30. I had no problem maintaining this effort for this short period of time and my HR averaged around 160 for the first mile, 163 for the second, 165 for the third.

Question time: Since I have not run at a faster pace over a longer distance for two years, will I be able to maintain 8 minute miles in the race? My long runs (10-13 miles) in training average right around 9 minutes/mile at 150.

Thanks for your time and insight.

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posted May-23-2006 12:58 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by enigma21:
Been a long time since I've been here, but figured I would pose a question to the board.

Have been MAF'ing for about 1 year with good progress. Started at 150 bpm upper limit last year with a pace of around 12 min/mile. Now down to 8:30 min/mile at 150 bpm. Have never run an organized race but I am scheduled for 1/2 marathon two weeks out and contemplating target pace.

Using Maffetone's chart for 5k predictions and plugging 21 minutes into 5k on McMillan's predicts I could hold a 7:25/mile pace for the half.

Knowing that I have completed the distance before MAF training in 1:43, I had originally targeted 1:45 as the overall goal. But seeing that it is predicted I could run better than that has me wondering what is sustainable.

Two months back, I started incorporating a 3 mile faster segment of a 6 mile run where I upped the pace to 7:30. I had no problem maintaining this effort for this short period of time and my HR averaged around 160 for the first mile, 163 for the second, 165 for the third.

Question time: Since I have not run at a faster pace over a longer distance for two years, will I be able to maintain 8 minute miles in the race? My long runs (10-13 miles) in training average right around 9 minutes/mile at 150.

Thanks for your time and insight.

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I'd find it hard to believe that you couldn't sustain much better
than 8 minute miles for a significant period of time. What you
might want to do for confidence if you want to stick with mostly
MAF running is to try to find some areas where you can get some
decent-length downhill running in, where you can at least practice
the speed but remain in the MAF zone. All of my road runs are on
very hilly courses, so I do get a good amount of running done at
near marathon race pace.

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posted May-23-2006 12:59 PM               

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posted May-23-2006 01:05 PM            

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posted May-23-2006 01:06 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by roy c:
Jesse
For the first time , I took the time and read through all of the FAQ. It has loads of interesting info. After racing a 10K on Sun which was a repeat of my first ever race last year and ending 16 seconds slower than last year. (it was raining and very windy) I have decided to give this a proper try. I did make a half hearted attempt a few months ago but got into the 10K training etc. I have a relay marathon in about 3 weeks, so after that I will follow this to the letter. It is very inspirational stuff and hopefully I will lose the 14lbs I need to aswell.
Thanks for your time
Roy

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Good luck, Roy - I hope you can reap the benefits from it that
many of us have seen.

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posted May-23-2006 02:45 PM            

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posted May-23-2006 03:41 PM            

Perfessor, in the old thread several of us discovered improvements at roughly the 250 mile mark running stictly at Maf. It wasn't weeks or time it was the miles. It just so happened that for the average runner, they got to 250 miles in that number of weeks.

Admittedly it was a small sample size and the 250 miles may have been a fluke.

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posted May-23-2006 04:06 PM               

I used Maffetone for base training, and I faired pretty well this weekend at the Sugarloaf/USA marathon. Though I was tired and mentally challenged (that's not too unusual), I never lost endurance, and never hit the wall.
Here's the most recent version of my report on ther Race Report Forum:

http://www.coolrunning.com/forums/Forum8/HTML/008632.shtml

Enjoy.

--Jimmy

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posted May-23-2006 04:20 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by PerfesserR:
Jesse,
Since this thread isn't long enough yet I thought I'd add some more...
What do you think of emphasizing the total number of miles (or hours) accumulated with this type of training, instead of the number of weeks. I expected to start to see results after 8 weeks, but the first few were very low mileage (injury rehab), and I'm just now hitting 32MPW. Looking at my training log, I notice that I've only accumulated 132 miles in the last 5 1/2 weeks, and that's probably just approaching the training volume where training effect would kick in. Plus 36 of those were trail runs, where my HR goes all over the place.
Actually, my last few runs, I've felt like my pace has picked up somewhat at a given HR, but don't have any numbers to back that up. I might actually be able to outrun the old ladies with walkers soon...

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That is a major accomplishment, when you start to pass the 90 year
old ladies! You can't help but laugh and jeer at them! haha - I passed ya!

Now, certainly this is a good point - I think there are three major related
factors - (1) accumulated mileage, (2) some metric of spacing between
mileage, and (3) length of longest run. How these all come together and
how to weight each particular one, I'm not sure. I'd probably never be able to collect enough data to unambiguously answer this. By (2), I
mean that if you take 1 or 2 days off in between each of your runs, you
probably won't see as much progress as if you ran every day.

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posted May-23-2006 09:20 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by Cashmason:

Perfessor, in the old thread several of us discovered improvements at roughly the 250 mile mark running stictly at Maf. It wasn't weeks or time it was the miles. It just so happened that for the average runner, they got to 250 miles in that number of weeks.

---

Thanks, that's a good "rule of thumb" to keep in mind. I'm just thinking that if a 12 MPW runner is expecting results after 6 weeks, they will probably be disappointed.
I was reading some articles written by experienced coaches who had their runners build their base endurance mileage by total miles, not by weeks, and that made a lot of sense to me. Their base for starting speedwork was about 400-500 miles, so a 250-mile point where basic endurance improvement would start showing up makes some sense.

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posted May-23-2006 09:30 PM            

My question is whether when doing maff training, do I need to increase volume to expect any benefit or do you think holding at 45mpw for the next 5 weeks and doing an 18 week < 60mpw schedule would result in any improvement? Has anybody kept constant mileage and improved at lower intensity? (It seems counterintuitive.) If I need more mileage, what do you think is reasonable given my current base if I do all less than MAF?

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posted May-23-2006 09:38 PM               

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posted May-24-2006 07:20 AM            

quote:

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Originally posted by leitnerj:
Nonetheless, you should shoot for a higher mileage,
really just based on a safe buildup and fitting in what you're able
to, and not necessarily based on a specific peak number. What
I would recommend is probably more frequent long runs of 16-22
miles, not just 2 or 3.

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Thanks for the reply Jesse. This makes sense to me. I have a feeling that as my mileage gets up, the distinction between base mileage and peak mileage will blur as I hit the limit of how many hours in a week there are :-) I'll go by feel with a healthy respect for the potential for injury, looking to bring up average mpw and get plenty of long runs.

By the way, I seem to have recovered my pace only a couple of weeks after dropping my limit from 150 to 145. I did a standard mid-week 10.5 mile route at my normal pace, but with an average heart rate 6 bpm lower than my previous best. I'm looking forward to my next MAF test in a couple of weeks.

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posted May-24-2006 07:51 AM            

Also, I have a chronic lung disease (Cystic Fibrosis), which doesn't limit my running but might play a role in determining my MAF.

First, does it make sense for me to start HRT with this "low" milage per week? My goal is to get to around 25-30 MPW, but I know it will take some time. I think this would be a good way to do some base building with regards to both milage and aerobic conditioning.

Second, seeing that I have this chronic health problem, should I take this into account with regards to Maffetone's method or subtracting 10 from my MAF due to a recent illness? Or, should I just go with subtracting 5 because I've not been running for more than 2 years? Thoughts, opinions?

Thanks in advance for any info.

CfKid

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posted May-24-2006 06:57 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by cfkid:
I have a few questions on Maffetone, etc. I'm just getting started with HRM training. Let me give some background first. I trained for and completed a half marathon on May 7th of this year (Flying Pig). However, I missed most of the longer (8, 9, and 10 mile) runs due to issues surrounding a misdiagnosis as an overpronator (I actually am neutral or under). So, my base at that point was aroun 12 miles per week.

Also, I have a chronic lung disease (Cystic Fibrosis), which doesn't limit my running but might play a role in determining my MAF.

First, does it make sense for me to start HRT with this "low" milage per week? My goal is to get to around 25-30 MPW, but I know it will take some time. I think this would be a good way to do some base building with regards to both milage and aerobic conditioning.

Second, seeing that I have this chronic health problem, should I take this into account with regards to Maffetone's method or subtracting 10 from my MAF due to a recent illness? Or, should I just go with subtracting 5 because I've not been running for more than 2 years? Thoughts, opinions?

Thanks in advance for any info.

CfKid

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This is a tough question and no one here can give you the right
answer. Nonetheless, I would suggest you start out around
180-age-10 and see how it goes. If you find that you are walking
the entire time, it's probably a bit low, but if you can keep some
semblance of a running pace there, try it for a while. There's always
a big question as to how effective it will be for low mileage runners
and new runners, but there have been successful and unsuccessful
versions of each, so if you feel that it may be a good solution for you,
it's worth giving it a try.

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posted May-25-2006 09:49 AM               

I can't pretend to be a faithful Maffetone adherent, but I have decided, now that my spring training cycle is over and I achieved my goals (a 10K PR, a 5K PR on a perhaps slightly short course; also #1 master in hometown 10K) to investigate low HR training for real. Last year at this time I was already starting to rebuid with faster runs--8-10 miles over hills at 8:00 pace and below, often with 5 miles at 7:30 pace. I didn't wear a HR monitor during those runs but am quite sure that that I was working at an intensity level of 85% max HR and above. Pretty close to half marathon pace effort.

This year I've decided to do things differently. Since I'm thinking about running a marathon in the fall, I'm thinking much more about fat-burning. I understand what I believe is a basic idea of the MAF plan, which is to run slowly enough that your body has no choice but to abjure glycogen in favor of fat burning.

What I'm also realizing is that a runner who has always tended to push pretty hard on longer/harder days has, in effect, radically de-trained the fat-burning response. He's trained his body to work well at a faster rate, but he's done that in part by training his body to chow down glycogen from the get go. That may, in the short term, be a pretty good way of running fast 10Ks and 5Ks. But I suspect that it's also a pretty counterproductive way to train for marathons. For ultras, obviously, it's suicidal.

So I really to get the MAF idea, I think. And it has required me to attend to very different parameters during my training runs. Chiefly it's required me to radically reconfigure my idea of a "good training run." Rather than shoot for a fast time and therefore a fast pace-per-mile figure at run's end, I'm shooting for a RELAXED HEART RATE, and, over time, the ability to ease back into a respectable pace at that low heart rate.

If one wants to develop superior endurance, it simply makes sense that at bare minimum one should be able to run long distances at a light subjective effort and low HR. Obviously one can always choose to push harder and run at a higher HR. More effort, higher HR. But I've also suddenly discovered that a willingness always to push--a willingness I've trained into myself--can actually mask a certain kind of aerobic out-of-shapeness: which is to say, the ability to run at a light effort and low HR. One only discovers this weakness if one is willing to let go of ALL pace parameters, all "should-be-able-to"s, and simply slows down and adheres to a particular low HR over whatever course one is running.

This is all terribly basic stuff for veteran Maffers, I suspect. But it's a brave new world for a hard training guy like me.

Now on my recovery runs, 4 days a week, 3 miles, I've always run around MAF - 5. My MAF HR is 137 (and my max is 196). I go real easy four days a week.

Last week I ran a new route over rolling hills: 8.3 miles, which I ran at 8:25 pace at an average HR of 154. Not anywhere near MAF. But notably more relaxed than I would have run it the year before. I found myself slowing considerably on the hills, trying at the very least to let my HR rise less than it ordinarily might.

Last Friday I ran 8 miles over another hill course and kept my HR to 151 at an average pace of 8:43.

On Sunday, a very warm sunny day, I did a long run. I was in St. Pete, Fla. I started slow and finished even slower, doing my damndest to keep HR down. Averaged 10:11 pace at a HR of 152. Again: nothing near a MAF HR. But ordinarily I would have pushed the whole second hour, scanndalized by my slow pace and determined to make my time more respectable. Wearing the HR monitor, keeping my eyes on the low HR prize, I held myself back. Failure, such as it was, was in the OTHER direction: if anything, I should have run slower.

This is all very new.

This past Wednesday (yesterday), I ran the same 8.3 mile course as a week earlier. This time, thoroughly intrigued by my inability to keep HR low, I decided to rise more deliberately to the challenge. I set ego aside. I started off very easily. When I hit the hills, I resolved to stop dead if my HR got too high.

I gave up pretty early, frankly, on hewing to my MAF HR. I decided to keep my HR at MAF + 10 or below: 147 or below.

Well, in the course of the run--and it was mid-70s, warming, sunny--I actually stopped 15 or 20 times. Just let my GPS do what it would. The hell with overall pace.

It was extremely hard to run slowly enough to keep my HR below 147, especially on the uphills.

The final talley: I averaged 9:38 pace--exactly 10 minutes slower over the 8.3 mile course than a week early--at an average HR of 147.

Whew! Your FAQ has a nice set of adjectives to describe the humbling experience of attempting to run easily enough to maintain MAF pace over a longer distance. Impossible, humiliating, humbling, infuriating, puzzing, etc. Maybe I've added a word.

Here I am, a guy who runs 10Ks at 6:34 pace and half marathons at 7:00 pace. And I'm discovering just how incredibly hard it can be to run long at a fat-burning pace, a light-effort pace, when you've de-tuned that particular energy system through hard training.

At the very least I'm going to stick with this for a month and see what happens.

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posted May-25-2006 02:55 PM               

I have only been running for 2 years and having kept myself injured through my own stupidity for most of the last two years I have slowly been learning simple things like not running all the time on roads, slowly building up the mileage and also landing more on my midfoot/forefoot.

Unfortunately until 2 months ago I still could never train for more than 2 runs before I tore a something - calf, hamstring, achilles whatever.

Having read this thread I bought a heart monitor and went for what I thought was an easy run - I was shocked to find that my pitiful 10min miles were putting my heart rate up to 170/180 - no wonder I was knackered.

I have now finished a glorious two months of running completely injury free by keeping my heart rate below 140. Ok, I am not really getting any speed benefits yet, but I can run for longer up to two hours - 2 months ago 35 mins was the most before something expired. Yes, i get overtaken by everything but hey being out with the dog shuffling along injury free is heaven - hopefully one day the mileage will be enough to begin to see some speed benefits.
regards
bouf - shufling very slowly but happily

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posted May-25-2006 03:28 PM               

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posted May-25-2006 08:44 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by KudzuRunner:
Jesse:

I can't pretend to be a faithful Maffetone adherent

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Well, dammit, kudzu, this place is only for the faithful MAFfers.
I'm sorry, but that's it. No deviants allowed here. But, nonetheless,
I hope you get something out of this. So as not to oversell it,
you ain't gonna stop burning carbs, not at any running pace.
However, you can train yourself to burn a very large percentage of
fat vs carb at a pretty good pace (so as to get a very nice time in
a marathon with no wall, no burnout, and not even any supplemental
carbs!) You may also find that you will feel much fresher, much
more often if you do most of your runs at MAF (of course, I
recommend that when you start, you stay strict with it for a good
3 months or so and don't cheat!) Keep us posted on how things
go. And you did make up a new word. What is puzzing anyway?
I'd like to add it to the FAQ list of adjectives, but I have to understand
its meaning first.

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[This message has been edited by leitnerj (edited May-25-2006).]

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