[daniel.p.armstrong]

I have recently done a heart rate drift test and discovered that my aerobic threshold is somewhere below 140 @5:40/KM (going to nail it down over more tests over the rest of this week). I am 9 weeks out from a 50 mile mountain race.Am I on the correct path if i just slow the hell down but carry on the milage prescribed by the training plan in TFTUA while making sure to keep everything under my aerobic threshold? Should I keep doing hill sprints or totally forgo all training above Z2?

Topic

[Brett]

Brett on February 27, 2020 at 7:29 am #38811

I was wondering the same. I’m 11 weeks out from my 100 miler and while I’ve improved my AeT HR considerably(142 improved to 152), I still have ADS (AnT is 177). My training plan (Big Vert) requires me to start doing Z3 uphill interval work next week, and I’m wondering if I just sub Z2 runs instead.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous on February 27, 2020 at 8:42 am #38813

Generally hill sprints are short enough to not elicit a big spike in your heart rate, so as long as you’re getting full rest in between each one, you can keep those in your program. Otherwise, you’re correct to spend as much time as possible right under or at your AeT. In 9 weeks you can see noticeable gains so it will be time well spent.

Brett, I would take out the Z3 intervals, since those are longer and can eat into your aerobic base. You’ll get more out of doing an additional aerobic capacity workout. Or, you could substitute hill sprints to get a really specific strength component.

[Brett]

Brett on February 27, 2020 at 9:01 am #38814

Thanks, Alison! I’m already doing hill sprints as required by the plan, so good to know I can keep doing those.

[daniel.p.armstrong]

daniel.p.armstrong on February 27, 2020 at 12:48 pm #38916

Thanks for the reply Alison! I will keep up hill sprints with significant rest between reps. Strength training wise, i imagine the long high intensity leg ME workouts are out of the question? With workouts at or below AeT, is it worth popping over threshold for a few minutes in a workout with the benefit of spending the rest of it closer to the threshold than if I played it safe and stuck below the threshold all the time?

One more question if you don’t mind. I appreciate you may not have this information to hand + it varies athlete to athlete, but what range of % improvement do you usually see with athletes correcting ADS? A futher test today seems to have pinned my AeT at ~130 BPM I obviously have quite far/long to go to bring my AeT within 10% of my Anerobic Threshold (175-180 BPM) but for motivation purposes as I plod along it id be nice to havee a rough idea of the range of gains I might see.
Cheers!