posted Jun-25-2007 03:44 AM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by Sparrowface:
I have no clue what you are talking about with all this RQ Aet biz. Are you telling me not to do this program? My understanding of it is that, yes, you can go out and run what "feels good" but still might be running at too high a heart range to work the aerobic system properly during the aerobic base period. How did you come up with the 176 formula? Are you a scientist or tester of some kind? Ultimately, what are you saying? How does one determine the proper effort then? If you are saying run what feels good, is a heart rate monitor even necessary? Lastly, why do you post on this thread if you aren't doing the MAF program, and seem to be confusing the issue and trying to lead people away from the formula? Genuinely curious about all questions. Not meant to flame.

---

Sparrowface -

Sorry it took so long to respond - been offline for a few days. I'll try to answer your questions as best I can. I'm certainly not telling you not to do "this program", if what you mean by that is basebuilding via low heart rate training. Probably everyone on this thread is doing, or has done, aerobic basebuilding this way. Some of us, myself included, don't really see any reason to ever get our heart rate above our "Maximum Aerobic Function" training level.

Note that you can get a fair amount of background in this thread just by reading pages 40 through the current one, e.g.

Ok. now for that stuff about RQ, AeT, etc. Suppose for a minute that we didn't have any "formulas" to tell us what our heart rate should be for various training levels, in particular - no formula to tell us what our max heart rate for aerobic basebuilding should be. What would we do then? To get more accurate than the old "conversational pace" or RPE or whatever, we would get a VO2 test. The VO2 test, for runners usually done on a treadmill, provides us with a number of things. It will be measuring our oxygen (O2) input and our carbon dioxide (CO2) output along with our heart rate and pace. The CO2/O2 gas volumes give us what is known as the "Respiratory Quotient" (RQ), which will tell us the percentages of our energy expenditure coming from fat burning and carb burning metabolisms. You can read about the RQ here:
www.tiem.utk.edu/~gross/bioed/webmodules/respiratoryquotient.html
Ok, now since we know that carb (glycogen) burning requires less oxygen for the same amount of energy output, it makes sense that as our exercise intensity increases we will start getting a higher percentage of our energy expenditure from from carb metabolism than fat metabolism. One way to visualize this would be to look at a picture, like the graph of colored regions in:
www.thecardiocoach.com.au/athletes.php
following the subtitle "Ideally your anaerobic threshold..." (I'm not saying I agree with that subtitle completely.) The blue region represents fat burrning while the green/red regions represent carb burning. Don't take those percentages too literally, but note that the point at which the body switches over to 100% carb burning is called the "Anaerobic Threshold" (AT). The RQ is 1.00 here, since the CO2 output is equal in gas volume to the O2 consumed by the body - pure carb metabolism. If you go to lower intensity/heartrate levels the RQ will go down, because pure fat metabolism uses more O2 for the same amount of energy and would have an RQ close to 0.70. To train our aerobic base, we need to train the fat metabolism, so we pick a point where the RQ tells us that we are getting a good percentage of our energy from fat. Usually this would be at least 50% to 75%. This would be represented by an RQ of around 0.77 (75% fat) to about 0.85 (50% fat.) Since the VO2 test tracks heart rate and RQ, all we have to do is select the RQ for our % of fat burning and see what the corresponding heart rate was for that level. That will be the "Maximum Aerobic Function" heart rate for our training. Often a particular point is selected and called the "Aerobic Threshold" (AeT). I found an example of the output of someone's particular VO2 test by a google search. I don't know much about it as far as interpreting all the gory details, except that it's disappointing that HR/RQ graphs are faulty because of some data link error. Anyway, here's that sample test output:
www.sharksbite.com/Tim%20Long%20Treadmill.pdf
There are some VO2 tests that are more sophisticated than this one... I have seen some that provide such a wealth of data that I would have to study them a long time to figure it all out.

Whew. Well, that's what we would do if we had no formulas, and we can still do it if we want to make really sure that we have the right training-point heart rate levels. But since everyone can't do that quite so quickly or easily, various formulas have been developed to use for determining heart rates to use for particular training zones. Maffetone's "180 formula", with its adjustments is one example. There are others, some use formulas to determine Maximum Heart Rate (MHR) and use percentages of that. Some use MHR and Resting Heart Rate (RHR) to determine Heart Rate Reserve (HRR), which is sometimes called Working Heart Rate, and use a percentage of that. Some use a percentage of AT (mentioned above), because AT can be estimated pretty well by certain high-intensity running tests. And so on.

How well do all the formulas work? It's well accepted that some (the "180" formula included) can't be depended on for people outside a certain age range (I myself am outside the age range for the "180" formula.) There are differences of opinion among folks posting to this thread about just how accurate any of these formulas are. That's perfectly ok. If you read those posts from page 40 of the thread you will find I'm not the only one who doesn't think the "180" formula is "super accurate." I think it probably works for the majority of people to get them to slow down and build a good aerobic base. I'm not a researcher, but I did get to look at a set of VO2 tests that were given locally to runners, cyclists, and triathletes. I did some statistics for feedback to the guy (a physiologist/kinesthesiologist type) who did the tests. You will see some summaries of that if you read the thread pages. That being said, there are folks who think the "180" formula has been handed down on stone tablets and is due that respect. As I said, the data I analyzed had a best fit of Aerobic Threshold to a linear function of age of
176 - 1.03*age
that matches the 180 formula almost exactly, and probably differs only in that I had no adjustments (injury, sickness, medications, history) to factor in. I just don't like the average absolute deviation and the standard deviation for the more than 75 VO2 tests I looked at. That’s why my personal opinion is that the formula is not necessarily “accurate.” Some others may disagree. Almost everyone would agree that a good VO2 test will give you more accurate information than any formula.

You will notice that I don't use "MAF" unless I'm referring to a "MAF test". That's because so many folks assume MAF means 180-age (with adjustments) when using the term. I do MAF tests, but they aren't related to "180" (my tested AeT last September was over 40 bpm above what the 180 formula gave.) I really like Maffetone's ideas of training at a "low" heart rate and doing periodic "MAF tests" to assess progress. I'm not necessarily trying to lead anyone away from "the formula" - I'm just saying that if the MAF tests or any other indicators (RHR recovery after workouts, rest days needed...) indicate that the system isn't working for you, then it might be time to adjust that formula value for yourself.

I wish I'd had a heart rate monitor 30 years ago. Back then it was just a chronograph watch with tachymeter dial. As long as my waking heart rate was down around 37 and my heart rate after running recovered to 85 within 3 minutes, I knew I wasn't training too hard. Now we have a lot of high-tech gadgets to help us out. How times change.

Please excuse me if I was too long-winded here…
Good luck with your training.

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posted Jun-25-2007 07:01 AM               

------------------
MyRunningLog
MyStuff
Low Heart Rate Training FAQ
My marathons and ultras
My races and reports

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posted Jun-25-2007 07:16 AM               

------------------
myspace
Higher Chakra Jewlery

MAF training + FL sun= FRUSTERATION!!!!!!

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posted Jun-25-2007 07:31 AM            

I ran 17 miles yesterday and I was able to keep the HR in the 130s for about 12 miles, then it started the HR creep that happens on long runs (and especially in heat and humidity). Low 140s till 15 and low 150s the last 2 miles. An easy but not slow 9:45 min/mile pace at 139 avg. BPM. Perfect for me. (I don't MAFF, I follow the Karvonen method).

Other than keeping well hydrated, I find the trick with S. Fla. running is to avoid the sun. I started Sunday's run at 4:40 AM. (I run most of my runs predawn to start anyway). Once the sun rose above the horizon and low cloud line, the HR creep started. I don't know why the direct sun does it to me, but it does.

You will acclimate. But you must slow down, drink a lot, and run in odd off hours. The speed comes back when the weather breaks in the late Fall. If you train in this weather, you will be super strong in normal weather.

Bill

------------------
Bill's Profile

[This message has been edited by breger1 (edited Jun-25-2007).]

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posted Jun-25-2007 08:08 AM               

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posted Jun-25-2007 08:24 AM               

Nick- So as long as I keep moving(not neccisarily running) it'll still be giving me the benifits of this training? Like if I have to walk to get say around 135... would it be better to mix walking and short spurts of running? Or should I just walk at that point? Once the sun was on me... that was what I was looking at for walking fast... then I could maybe jog very slow for about a half block before having to stop and walk to bring the HR back down. It just was frusterating, that was the slowest 5 miles of my life... I know I needed to slow down, but WHOA! If this is how bad my cardio system is, and this will help, that's what I'll do. My races in the spring were slow, cause I'm kinda slow, but more because I just couldn't keep up a decent pace for the whole race... my HM I faded badly the last 5k... then I did an 8k two weeks later, and though it was a PR I knew I really needed to work on my endurance.

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posted Jun-25-2007 10:03 AM            

I do have a quick question/favor to ask of you.

I know that most on here follow Maffetone but I have also read of several others that have done Hadd.

Would some of you that have done Hadd mind posting some of your results from the tests. I just finished my first 6 week period (and second Hadd test) and am just trying to see how my times compare with some others that have done this and had success.

Thanks.

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posted Jun-25-2007 10:06 AM            

I do have a quick question/favor to ask of you.

I know that most on here follow Maffetone but I have also read of several others that have done Hadd.

Would some of you that have done Hadd mind posting some of your results from the tests. I just finished my first 6 week period (and second Hadd test) and am just trying to see how my times compare with some others that have done this and had success.

Thanks.

IP: Logged

posted Jun-25-2007 10:08 AM            

I do have a quick question/favor to ask of you.

I know that most on here follow Maffetone but I have also read of several others that have done Hadd.

Would some of you that have done Hadd mind posting some of your results from the tests. I just finished my first 6 week period (and second Hadd test) and am just trying to see how my times compare with some others that have done this and had success.

Thanks.

IP: Logged

posted Jun-25-2007 10:25 AM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by breger1:
RunningForFreedom, I live and run in S. Fla. too. So I sympathize.

I ran 17 miles yesterday and I was able to keep the HR in the 130s for about 12 miles, then it started the HR creep that happens on long runs (and especially in heat and humidity). Low 140s till 15 and low 150s the last 2 miles. An easy but not slow 9:45 min/mile pace at 139 avg. BPM. Perfect for me. (I don't MAFF, I follow the Karvonen method).

Other than keeping well hydrated, I find the trick with S. Fla. running is to avoid the sun. I started Sunday's run at 4:40 AM. (I run most of my runs predawn to start anyway). Once the sun rose above the horizon and low cloud line, the HR creep started. I don't know why the direct sun does it to me, but it does.

You will acclimate. But you must slow down, drink a lot, and run in odd off hours. The speed comes back when the weather breaks in the late Fall. If you train in this weather, you will be super strong in normal weather.

Bill

---

Hey Bill,

I was just reading about the effect of direct sun on HR and running this weekend. The information I've read says that direct sun will add the equivalent of 10F to 15F to the real temperature when you're looking at exercise HR. Direct sun makes the skin surface very warm, very quickly. The body moves more blood to skin level in an attempt to cool the skin, leaving less blood for the body to feed your muscles, etc. causing your heart to beat much faster in an attempt to keep up.

When it comes to low HR training direct sun can make even moderate temps very difficult in a hurry. I ran for 5 days on Miami Beach during a work event last summer while doing low HR training. It was the worst running week of my life, but the scenery wasn't bad

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posted Jun-25-2007 11:43 AM               

Give the low HR training a 90 day-FREE trial. Enjoy it. I guarantee you will feel better--and your base level of aerobic fitness will improve. Come Fall--you can build up a little speed. Read Jesse's FAQ. Also--I like Hadd's approach.

Not sure where walking got such a bad rap. Again, relax--make it fun. If people comment at how slow you are going--telling them that is your speed work-out. I have consistently trained at 2-3 minutes off my 5K/10K race pace and end up passing a lot of folks who train a lot harder/faster than I do. Also, I don't know too many who are still at it 31 yrs later with 64,000( actually 63,982 miles) on the roads. I attribute a lot of my longevity to taking it EZ. Try it--you may like it. Oh, even with mostly EZ stuff I got my 10K time down to low 37's--this, after 12 yrs of smoking and not starting real running until I was 32. Nick

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posted Jun-25-2007 11:56 AM            

Can some of the Hadd users on here do me a big favor?

Would you mind posting your results with Hadd so I can see some results from others that have used the program and had some success?

If you just post like this example, I would really be grateful.

First test - May 15

140 - 11:30 pace
150 - 10:45 pace
160 - 10:15 pace
170 - 9:30 pace
180 - 8:55 pace

Second test - June 25

140 - 10:55 pace
150 - 10:08 pace
etc.

Averaged 38 mpw over the six weeks.

IP: Logged

posted Jun-25-2007 12:26 PM               

I think you will be pleasantly surprised with the results. With the heat and hummidity--running easier will be a little more comfortable and the temps won't be so noticeable as when you are out of your ez aerobic zone.

Oh, if what you have done in the past has not worked as well as you would have liked--why not try a new approach? Patience--GH--Grasshopper--Patience. Nick

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posted Jun-25-2007 12:30 PM               

I think you will be pleasantly surprised with the results. With the heat and hummidity--running easier will be a little more comfortable and the temps won't be so noticeable as when you are out of your ez aerobic zone.

Oh, if what you have done in the past has not worked as well as you would have liked--why not try a new approach? Patience--GH--Grasshopper--Patience. Nick

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posted Jun-25-2007 01:55 PM               

I think you will be pleasantly surprised with the results. With the heat and hummidity--running easier will be a little more comfortable and the temps won't be so noticeable as when you are out of your ez aerobic zone.

Oh, if what you have done in the past has not worked as well as you would have liked--why not try a new approach? Patience--GH--Grasshopper--Patience. Nick

IP: Logged

posted Jun-25-2007 04:06 PM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by slowgino:
Sparrowface -

Sorry it took so long to respond - been offline for a few days. I'll try to answer your questions as best I can. I'm certainly not telling you not to do "this program", if what you mean by that is basebuilding via low heart rate training. Probably everyone on this thread is doing, or has done, aerobic basebuilding this way. Some of us, myself included, don't really see any reason to [b]ever get our heart rate above our "Maximum Aerobic Function" training level.

Note that you can get a fair amount of background in this thread just by reading pages 40 through the current one, e.g.

Ok. now for that stuff about RQ, AeT, etc. Suppose for a minute that we didn't have any "formulas" to tell us what our heart rate should be for various training levels, in particular - no formula to tell us what our max heart rate for aerobic basebuilding should be. What would we do then? To get more accurate than the old "conversational pace" or RPE or whatever, we would get a VO2 test. The VO2 test, for runners usually done on a treadmill, provides us with a number of things. It will be measuring our oxygen (O2) input and our carbon dioxide (CO2) output along with our heart rate and pace. The CO2/O2 gas volumes give us what is known as the "Respiratory Quotient" (RQ), which will tell us the percentages of our energy expenditure coming from fat burning and carb burning metabolisms. You can read about the RQ here:
www.tiem.utk.edu/~gross/bioed/webmodules/respiratoryquotient.html
Ok, now since we know that carb (glycogen) burning requires less oxygen for the same amount of energy output, it makes sense that as our exercise intensity increases we will start getting a higher percentage of our energy expenditure from from carb metabolism than fat metabolism. One way to visualize this would be to look at a picture, like the graph of colored regions in:
www.thecardiocoach.com.au/athletes.php
following the subtitle "Ideally your anaerobic threshold..." (I'm not saying I agree with that subtitle completely.) The blue region represents fat burrning while the green/red regions represent carb burning. Don't take those percentages too literally, but note that the point at which the body switches over to 100% carb burning is called the "Anaerobic Threshold" (AT). The RQ is 1.00 here, since the CO2 output is equal in gas volume to the O2 consumed by the body - pure carb metabolism. If you go to lower intensity/heartrate levels the RQ will go down, because pure fat metabolism uses more O2 for the same amount of energy and would have an RQ close to 0.70. To train our aerobic base, we need to train the fat metabolism, so we pick a point where the RQ tells us that we are getting a good percentage of our energy from fat. Usually this would be at least 50% to 75%. This would be represented by an RQ of around 0.77 (75% fat) to about 0.85 (50% fat.) Since the VO2 test tracks heart rate and RQ, all we have to do is select the RQ for our % of fat burning and see what the corresponding heart rate was for that level. That will be the "Maximum Aerobic Function" heart rate for our training. Often a particular point is selected and called the "Aerobic Threshold" (AeT). I found an example of the output of someone's particular VO2 test by a google search. I don't know much about it as far as interpreting all the gory details, except that it's disappointing that HR/RQ graphs are faulty because of some data link error. Anyway, here's that sample test output:
www.sharksbite.com/Tim%20Long%20Treadmill.pdf
There are some VO2 tests that are more sophisticated than this one... I have seen some that provide such a wealth of data that I would have to study them a long time to figure it all out.

Whew. Well, that's what we would do if we had no formulas, and we can still do it if we want to make really sure that we have the right training-point heart rate levels. But since everyone can't do that quite so quickly or easily, various formulas have been developed to use for determining heart rates to use for particular training zones. Maffetone's "180 formula", with its adjustments is one example. There are others, some use formulas to determine Maximum Heart Rate (MHR) and use percentages of that. Some use MHR and Resting Heart Rate (RHR) to determine Heart Rate Reserve (HRR), which is sometimes called Working Heart Rate, and use a percentage of that. Some use a percentage of AT (mentioned above), because AT can be estimated pretty well by certain high-intensity running tests. And so on.

How well do all the formulas work? It's well accepted that some (the "180" formula included) can't be depended on for people outside a certain age range (I myself am outside the age range for the "180" formula.) There are differences of opinion among folks posting to this thread about just how accurate any of these formulas are. That's perfectly ok. If you read those posts from page 40 of the thread you will find I'm not the only one who doesn't think the "180" formula is "super accurate." I think it probably works for the majority of people to get them to slow down and build a good aerobic base. I'm not a researcher, but I did get to look at a set of VO2 tests that were given locally to runners, cyclists, and triathletes. I did some statistics for feedback to the guy (a physiologist/kinesthesiologist type) who did the tests. You will see some summaries of that if you read the thread pages. That being said, there are folks who think the "180" formula has been handed down on stone tablets and is due that respect. As I said, the data I analyzed had a best fit of Aerobic Threshold to a linear function of age of
176 - 1.03*age
that matches the 180 formula almost exactly, and probably differs only in that I had no adjustments (injury, sickness, medications, history) to factor in. I just don't like the average absolute deviation and the standard deviation for the more than 75 VO2 tests I looked at. That’s why my personal opinion is that the formula is not necessarily “accurate.” Some others may disagree. Almost everyone would agree that a good VO2 test will give you more accurate information than any formula.

You will notice that I don't use "MAF" unless I'm referring to a "MAF test". That's because so many folks assume MAF means 180-age (with adjustments) when using the term. I do MAF tests, but they aren't related to "180" (my tested AeT last September was over 40 bpm above what the 180 formula gave.) I really like Maffetone's ideas of training at a "low" heart rate and doing periodic "MAF tests" to assess progress. I'm not necessarily trying to lead anyone away from "the formula" - I'm just saying that if the MAF tests or any other indicators (RHR recovery after workouts, rest days needed...) indicate that the system isn't working for you, then it might be time to adjust that formula value for yourself.

I wish I'd had a heart rate monitor 30 years ago. Back then it was just a chronograph watch with tachymeter dial. As long as my waking heart rate was down around 37 and my heart rate after running recovered to 85 within 3 minutes, I knew I wasn't training too hard. Now we have a lot of high-tech gadgets to help us out. How times change.

Please excuse me if I was too long-winded here…
Good luck with your training.[/B]

---

Wowee. Thanx. Very, very interesting.There is so much to learn...

IP: Logged

posted Jun-25-2007 04:22 PM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by runningforfreedom:
... it's hot... okay hot is an understatement... not only that, but it's humid too... <snip>
... but even jogging super slow was not enough to stay under, so I walked a LOT. <snip>
... and don't see the same benifits comming from walking if I'm training to run and eventually race more races. Any of you out there have experience with this? It was extremely frusterating to have to stop and walk after barely jogging half a block at a time(or even less once the sun was beating down on me)... <snip>
... What do you guys do in the crazy heat?

---

There's nothing wrong with doing a run/walk system even if you have to walk more (or a lot more) with high heat and humidity. Be sure to stay hydrated and replace electrolytes lost to perspiration (I use water and Endurolyte capsules.)

I wear a hat with good sun protection, the "Ultra Athlete Shade Cap" from Sun Precautions
www.sunprecautions.com

Another trick if you have a track or someplace like that where you can run loops is to leave a cooler with crushed ice that you can run by periodically. Just take a handful of crushed ice and put it inside your hat - does that feel good! Sometimes I put the ice inside a handkerchief or something before putting it in the hat - keeps the ice from falling out too soon. It's neat to have ice water dripping down from on top of your head.

Take heart. Your hot weather is good heat training. 30 years ago Marti Liquori went to Europe and beat a lot of the world's best runners (and set American records) after training in the Florida heat. His times in Florida were so bad he almost didn't go. Heat training works. Don't worry if you have to walk more, you will still be improving your condition.

Here in the Pacific NW we don't have florida humidity or heat, but last week I noticed a definite heart rate increase running on an 80 degree day in late afternoon compared to 55 degree mornings. Just had to walk more and run less.

Think of it like you are training for "Badwater", the 135-mile ultra that goes through Death Valley where temperatures may go to 130 F.

IP: Logged

posted Jun-25-2007 04:33 PM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by runningforfreedom:
... it's hot... okay hot is an understatement... not only that, but it's humid too... <snip>
... but even jogging super slow was not enough to stay under, so I walked a LOT. <snip>
... and don't see the same benifits comming from walking if I'm training to run and eventually race more races. Any of you out there have experience with this? It was extremely frusterating to have to stop and walk after barely jogging half a block at a time(or even less once the sun was beating down on me)... <snip>
... What do you guys do in the crazy heat?

---

There's nothing wrong with doing a run/walk system even if you have to walk more (or a lot more) with high heat and humidity. Be sure to stay hydrated and replace electrolytes lost to perspiration (I use water and Endurolyte capsules.)

I wear a hat with good sun protection, the "Ultra Athlete Shade Cap" from Sun Precautions
www.sunprecautions.com

Another trick if you have a track or someplace like that where you can run loops is to leave a cooler with crushed ice that you can run by periodically. Just take a handful of crushed ice and put it inside your hat - does that feel good! Sometimes I put the ice inside a handkerchief or something before putting it in the hat - keeps the ice from falling out too soon. It's neat to have ice water dripping down from on top of your head.

Take heart. Your hot weather is good heat training. 30 years ago Marti Liquori went to Europe and beat a lot of the world's best runners (and set American records) after training in the Florida heat. His times in Florida were so bad he almost didn't go. Heat training works. Don't worry if you have to walk more, you will still be improving your condition.

Here in the Pacific NW we don't have florida humidity or heat, but last week I noticed a definite heart rate increase running on an 80 degree day in late afternoon compared to 55 degree mornings. Just had to walk more and run less.

Think of it like you are training for "Badwater", the 135-mile ultra that goes through Death Valley where temperatures may go to 130 F.

IP: Logged

posted Jun-25-2007 04:39 PM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by runningforfreedom:
... it's hot... okay hot is an understatement... not only that, but it's humid too... <snip>
... but even jogging super slow was not enough to stay under, so I walked a LOT. <snip>
... and don't see the same benifits comming from walking if I'm training to run and eventually race more races. Any of you out there have experience with this? It was extremely frusterating to have to stop and walk after barely jogging half a block at a time(or even less once the sun was beating down on me)... <snip>
... What do you guys do in the crazy heat?

---

There's nothing wrong with doing a run/walk system even if you have to walk more (or a lot more) with high heat and humidity. Be sure to stay hydrated and replace electrolytes lost to perspiration (I use water and Endurolyte capsules.)

I wear a hat with good sun protection, the "Ultra Athlete Shade Cap" from Sun Precautions
www.sunprecautions.com

Another trick if you have a track or someplace like that where you can run loops is to leave a cooler with crushed ice that you can run by periodically. Just take a handful of crushed ice and put it inside your hat - does that feel good! Sometimes I put the ice inside a handkerchief or something before putting it in the hat - keeps the ice from falling out too soon. It's neat to have ice water dripping down from on top of your head.

Take heart. Your hot weather is good heat training. 30 years ago Marti Liquori went to Europe and beat a lot of the world's best runners (and set American records) after training in the Florida heat. His times in Florida were so bad he almost didn't go. Heat training works. Don't worry if you have to walk more, you will still be improving your condition.

Here in the Pacific NW we don't have florida humidity or heat, but last week I noticed a definite heart rate increase running on an 80 degree day in late afternoon compared to 55 degree mornings. Just had to walk more and run less.

Think of it like you are training for "Badwater", the 135-mile ultra that goes through Death Valley where temperatures may go to 130 F.

IP: Logged

posted Jun-25-2007 04:41 PM            

quote:

---

Originally posted by runningforfreedom:
... it's hot... okay hot is an understatement... not only that, but it's humid too... <snip>
... but even jogging super slow was not enough to stay under, so I walked a LOT. <snip>
... and don't see the same benifits comming from walking if I'm training to run and eventually race more races. Any of you out there have experience with this? It was extremely frusterating to have to stop and walk after barely jogging half a block at a time(or even less once the sun was beating down on me)... <snip>
... What do you guys do in the crazy heat?

---

There's nothing wrong with doing a run/walk system even if you have to walk more (or a lot more) with high heat and humidity. Be sure to stay hydrated and replace electrolytes lost to perspiration (I use water and Endurolyte capsules.)

I wear a hat with good sun protection, the "Ultra Athlete Shade Cap" from Sun Precautions
www.sunprecautions.com

Another trick if you have a track or someplace like that where you can run loops is to leave a cooler with crushed ice that you can run by periodically. Just take a handful of crushed ice and put it inside your hat - does that feel good! Sometimes I put the ice inside a handkerchief or something before putting it in the hat - keeps the ice from falling out too soon. It's neat to have ice water dripping down from on top of your head.

Take heart. Your hot weather is good heat training. 30 years ago Marti Liquori went to Europe and beat a lot of the world's best runners (and set American records) after training in the Florida heat. His times in Florida were so bad he almost didn't go. Heat training works. Don't worry if you have to walk more, you will still be improving your condition.

Here in the Pacific NW we don't have florida humidity or heat, but last week I noticed a definite heart rate increase running on an 80 degree day in late afternoon compared to 55 degree mornings. Just had to walk more and run less.

Think of it like you are training for "Badwater", the 135-mile ultra that goes through Death Valley where temperatures may go to 130 F.

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posted Jun-25-2007 05:46 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by runningforfreedom:
Question here... Saturday I went out for my "run" with a plan of doing 5-7 miles... I made it 5 miles before saying that's enough tourture for today... I live in S. FL... it's hot... okay hot is an understatement... not only that, but it's humid too... so even though I got out there early... it wasn't early enough not to make my HR go crazy... My MAF according to the 180- age is 146... but even jogging super slow was not enough to stay under, so I walked a LOT. My question is, other than going inside for the summer (yeah right!) do you ever add beats to your max HR on account of the heat? Or will I have to walk the majority of my miles to stay in MAF? I can run on the TM under MAF... very slowly, but I don't have to walk... and don't see the same benifits comming from walking if I'm training to run and eventually race more races. Any of you out there have experience with this? It was extremely frusterating to have to stop and walk after barely jogging half a block at a time(or even less once the sun was beating down on me)... when even my normal short run is 3-4 miles. I never stopped due to being winded... my pace felt extremely easy(pretty much rediculously so), but my HR was going crazy in the sun. What do you guys do in the crazy heat?

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The beauty of HRT is that includes how you feel that day, wind, the heat, hydration, need for recovery into the zone. 146 is 146. If you were to run the Boston Marathon in 90º, it would slow you down bigtime. Same with training. It's really easy to go out on a hot day and over do it. The HRM will keep you in check. Plus, if you see improvement in the heat, you'll really see a drop when the colder weather comes.

I understand about slowing in heat. If it gets over 75º, I end up running very slowly in the last part of my runs to keep under the MAF. Just so happens I started up again a few weeks ago as well. I've done a few 14:00 miles.

Falzacomin.

--Jimmy

Jog Log
zzzzzzz

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posted Jun-25-2007 10:18 PM            

I’ve had a heartrate monitor for a few weeks now and have done several runs of various distances so I have a little bit of data on my heartrate. I’m still pretty much a rookie when it comes to running. I’m 41 and started running 10 months ago. I’ve run 5 races, a 10K, 2 10 milers, a HM, a Marathon, and a 5K. My most recent race was a 10 mile race on June 16 where my time was 1:28:27, about an 8:51 pace. About a week before the race I ran 10 miles with my HRM and it was 72 deg F, 90% humidity. On that run my avg HR was 159 and my max was 171. My total time for that run was 1:33:xx, so roughly 30 sec slower than race pace.

So today I go to the track, stretch, jog a lap, then run a hard 2 laps. My time for the first lap is 1:22. My final time for 2 laps is 2:47. I rest for 2 minutes then run a hard 400 meter (440 yd, whatever – another lap) I’m sucking wind bad by the end of both of these runs and my final lap is 1:28. Now for the surprising part. My max heartrate was only 182!!! This really wasn’t a fun test and I don’t want to do it again, but does this sound realistic?

Once I had an unexplainable spike while I was running… the reading jumped to 207 when I was running really slowly and I didn’t even know it until after my run was finished because it went back down after a few seconds. Could my max heartrate really be only 182?

I’ve stayed in pretty good shape lifting weights, but haven’t ever really worked my aerobic system much until the last 10 months. I’d really appreciate hearing some thoughts/opinions on this.

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posted Jun-25-2007 10:31 PM            

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Originally posted by tpenn40:
I have a question for you folks who know about heart rate training. I just finished a max heartrate test and my results were pretty surprising.

I’ve had a heartrate monitor for a few weeks now and have done several runs of various distances so I have a little bit of data on my heartrate. I’m still pretty much a rookie when it comes to running. I’m 41 and started running 10 months ago. I’ve run 5 races, a 10K, 2 10 milers, a HM, a Marathon, and a 5K. My most recent race was a 10 mile race on June 16 where my time was 1:28:27, about an 8:51 pace. About a week before the race I ran 10 miles with my HRM and it was 72 deg F, 90% humidity. On that run my avg HR was 159 and my max was 171. My total time for that run was 1:33:xx, so roughly 30 sec slower than race pace.

So today I go to the track, stretch, jog a lap, then run a hard 2 laps. My time for the first lap is 1:22. My final time for 2 laps is 2:47. I rest for 2 minutes then run a hard 400 meter (440 yd, whatever – another lap) I’m sucking wind bad by the end of both of these runs and my final lap is 1:28. Now for the surprising part. My max heartrate was only 182!!! This really wasn’t a fun test and I don’t want to do it again, but does this sound realistic?

Once I had an unexplainable spike while I was running… the reading jumped to 207 when I was running really slowly and I didn’t even know it until after my run was finished because it went back down after a few seconds. Could my max heartrate really be only 182?

I’ve stayed in pretty good shape lifting weights, but haven’t ever really worked my aerobic system much until the last 10 months. I’d really appreciate hearing some thoughts/opinions on this.

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Your true MHR is probably higher. You need to warm-up for a long time before you start the hard stuff, and then you need to do that for awhile.
The first MHR test I ever did was on a track doing something similar to yours. I got 182 I think. Then 6 months later in a half marathon, as I sprinted the last half mile I got it to 197. The highest I've ever seen is 199, done in a recent 5k--I warmed up for 2 miles before the race. could probably get it higher, but not much. So what's a few beats anyway.

--Jimmy

Jog Log
zzzzzzz

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posted Jun-25-2007 10:59 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by jjwaverly42:
Your true MHR is probably higher. You need to warm-up for a long time before you start the hard stuff, and then you need to do that for awhile.
The first MHR test I ever did was on a track doing something similar to yours. I got 182 I think. Then 6 months later in a half marathon, as I sprinted the last half mile I got it to 197. The highest I've ever seen is 199, done in a recent 5k--I warmed up for 2 miles before the race. could probably get it higher, but not much. So what's a few beats anyway.

--Jimmy

Jog Log
zzzzzzz

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I'm not really doing the low heartrate training yet. I guess I'm trying to find some sort of measurement to see that I'm not wimping out when my run gets tough. If I know my actual max HR then the % max should be at least some sort of measure of my exertion level.

I don't know, maybe I just like numbers LOL!

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posted Jun-25-2007 11:29 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by tpenn40:
I have a question for you folks who know about heart rate training. I just finished a max heartrate test and my results were pretty surprising.

I’ve had a heartrate monitor for a few weeks now and have done several runs of various distances so I have a little bit of data on my heartrate. I’m still pretty much a rookie when it comes to running. I’m 41 and started running 10 months ago. I’ve run 5 races, a 10K, 2 10 milers, a HM, a Marathon, and a 5K. My most recent race was a 10 mile race on June 16 where my time was 1:28:27, about an 8:51 pace. About a week before the race I ran 10 miles with my HRM and it was 72 deg F, 90% humidity. On that run my avg HR was 159 and my max was 171. My total time for that run was 1:33:xx, so roughly 30 sec slower than race pace.

So today I go to the track, stretch, jog a lap, then run a hard 2 laps. My time for the first lap is 1:22. My final time for 2 laps is 2:47. I rest for 2 minutes then run a hard 400 meter (440 yd, whatever – another lap) I’m sucking wind bad by the end of both of these runs and my final lap is 1:28. Now for the surprising part. My max heartrate was only 182!!! This really wasn’t a fun test and I don’t want to do it again, but does this sound realistic?

Once I had an unexplainable spike while I was running… the reading jumped to 207 when I was running really slowly and I didn’t even know it until after my run was finished because it went back down after a few seconds. Could my max heartrate really be only 182?

I’ve stayed in pretty good shape lifting weights, but haven’t ever really worked my aerobic system much until the last 10 months. I’d really appreciate hearing some thoughts/opinions on this.

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What's wrong with 182? My top is 169 and there are lots of folks lower than that. It is what it is. I think Jimmy's right, you've probably got a few more beats in you but so what?

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