ME limitation ?

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June 25, 2021 at 7:39 am #55110

l.tregan
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Hello,

I completed a hilly race on a 11k +700m course in 1h05.

My heart rate throughout was pretty close to AnT within a few beats. I noticed I felt ok on flats and was passing people, but on uphills the heart rate would go down by 5bpm with legs burning and people would pass me.

Does that indicate I need to work more on my Local Muscular Endurance as limiting factor ?

Background: AnT = 172bpm, AeT = 145bpm. Yearly volume is 2000km +120000m, almost all in Z1-Z2 so not sure why there is that ADS thing 😉

Thanks,

loic

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Posted In: Mountain Running

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Dada on June 25, 2021 at 7:54 am #55115

Yes, to me that sounds like ME deficiency. When I start a block of VO2MAX intervals, at the beginning of this block, my legs are also the limiter and at around rep 4 I don’t get my HR up anymore because legs fail.

Best regards
Dada

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Anonymous on June 25, 2021 at 9:21 am #55121

Five BPM isn’t much of a difference. Judging by the feeling in your legs though, more ME work may be something to try.

WRT your thresholds, how did you test them?

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l.tregan on June 25, 2021 at 10:47 am #55143

Thanks Dada and Scott.

Here is the logic I used to compute the thresolds, hope that is ok:

– AeT threshold: I tested only once on track using your recommended 1h drift test (I aimed for 150bpm which gave me a 7% drift in Training Peaks, so I guess a bit below that at 145bpm would be the AeT) .

I am not used to run on flat though, so I will have to try again: my legs felt dead for 3 days after 12km at 150bpm, while on trails I often do 20km 3 days in a row and I recover well.

– AnT threshold: I just assumed what I measured in that 1h race above is the AnT. 170-175bpm felt good on the flat sections, I thus took 172bpm in the middle as estimate.

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Anonymous on June 29, 2021 at 10:29 am #55232

I am not used to run on flat though, so I will have to try again: my legs felt dead for 3 days after 12km at 150bpm, while on trails I often do 20km 3 days in a row and I recover well.

This is why a treadmill is often a better choice for folks with a lot of trail running experience. It’s common for long flat runs, especially if they are close to AeT, to beat up the legs.

For example, when Jornet was trying to break the 24h flat run record, part of his preparation was testing a sub-2mM/L lactate value. At 4’/km he was between 1.4 and 1.7 (if I remember correctly). That’s a low value, but more important to his eventual withdrawal was the beating his legs took at that pace. Even though the pace wasn’t hard (for him), the cumulative wear and tear was.

– AnT threshold: I just assumed what I measured in that 1h race above is the AnT. 170-175bpm felt good on the flat sections, I thus took 172bpm in the middle as estimate.

That’s reasonable.

I think it’s best to think of thresholds in BPM “buckets”, especially if there aren’t many tests to refer to. In that context, I would use 170 as AnT HR.

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