Hi there

I am a 37 year old female and am currently doing the 20 week Intro to Ultra Running training plan. I’ve been running for 5+ years but have only been running longer distances (up to 30km) the last two years.

I had a severe anemia up until two years ago, and am wondering if this has affected my AeT/AnT. My hemoglobin was 82 (8.2 in the US) and my ferritin was 2 when I was diagnosed. This was corrected after 3 rounds of iron infusions. I was running very very slowly during this time and could not run for more than an hour, and when it was at its worst I could barely run a mile. I think this had been going on for 2-3years and I just attributed it to fatigue/sleep deprivation/being out of shape.

I’ve done the AeT an AnT as described in the plan. I’ve done the heart rate drift test a few times and the nose-breathing treadmill test for AeT.

My AeT is surprisingly high – I got 169 using the heart rate drift test on a flat loop. This is similar to what I got using the nose breathing test. My pace is slow though-I covered 9km (5.6 miles) in the 1h test on a flat gravel path.

My AnT is ~183.

Just curious if you have any thoughts on how anemia can affect AeT/AnT and if these effects can persist even after the anemia is corrected? I’m a physician and have given this some thought – I can see how my AnT would change since my cells were probably so oxygen deprived with exercise but have a harder time understanding how this would affect my AeT long term – unless my cells just adapted to being more efficient at using oxygen and that persisted even after the anemia was corrected…

Also-given my results (if they are correct) i.e. high AeT, but slow pace, do you have any advice on modifying the training?

I included screen shots of the training peaks data in case I’m interpreting it wrong…

Thanks for your help!