Good question, I’ve pondered the same thing with regard to climbing/trails/etc.

I’ve always done a “ramp test” (which I got from Jack Daniels or Joe Friel I can’t remember which), where you perform a series of 3min speed increases on a treadmill and capture the HR for each, then stop and stand still for 1min, capturing both the average and the final BPM at the end of that minute. Add up all the averages and you get a “ramp score.” It’s applicable only to yourself of course but you can gauge improvement that way at least as the number drops over the course of training.

When I was doing a ton of climbing races I even converted it into what I called the “Ramp Ramp Test” where I did all the same speed-increments but I did them at 12% grade on the treadmill.

I’d be curious what the experts here suggest for tracking progress.

The best gauge of improvement is some sort of test or time trial. I use an aerobic threshold time trial for this. You find a course that models the demands of your sport that is about 1 hour long. Run this at your assumed AeT and get a time. A few weeks or 2 months later time this again. You will see gains in this AeT pace until your aerobic deficiency disappears.

REMEMBER: This aerobic base by itself is NOT what makes you faster in race. It only provides a base of support for the high intensity training which is what improves endurance support. The bigger this aerobic base of support the more potential for endurance performance improvement. This is why during the base period, for the aerobically deficient, they will not see much endurance performance improvement. They have to add the race specific training to see those gains.

This basic aerobic capacity we are trying to improve with a high volume of low intensity training is slow to improve and will not manifest much change in 4 weeks. Four months, yes. Four weeks…not likely to measurable. To perform your best in races you need two things. 1) A big base both aerobic and strength. We call this capacity building training and 2) Plenty of race specific training. We call this utilization training.

You cannot build capacity and utilize it at the same time. This is why periodization of training focus works. In this process you have a prolonged base period in which you are increasing your work capacity in the fundamental qualities that make up your event. Then with these fundamental qualities are high, and you come close to needing to race fast you begin to add in the race specific utilization workouts that model the specific demands of the event you are preparing for.

If you just want to race a lot then there will not be much time for base building and eventually all the utilization training will cause the wheels to come off. For maximum performance gains you need to prioritize a base period at some stage during the year’s training.

Scott

I completely forgot about the MAF test.

What is the MAF Test?

I think this is closer to what scott was describing in his aerobic threshold test. Maffetone’s version simply has you run a warmup and then 3m as close to your MAF limit. Test every 3-4 weeks and you’ll find that your pace splits for each mile continually drop. Once the improvement plateaus, then and only then consider adding in some High Intensity work.

Maffetone is much more extreme in his application of “base” work than Scott and the UA guys here, but it’s pretty similar. I do the MAF protocol when I am base building and recovering from injury.

I’m learning from Scott’s TFtUA book now though that MAF won’t quite cut it. With a mild case of ADS, I need more Zone 2 work which MAF strictly forbids.