[Aamm]

About a year ago I started follow Uphill Athlete style training. I did a treadmill test
and determined my AeT to be ~134. Since then I tried to stay around 130 on my runs and ski tours to develop my aerobic engine. However, I wasn’t following a strict structured training though and would definitely get into higher effort days, especially ski touring.

This morning I retested my AeT with a blood lactate meter and was very surprised a a result of ~145. (I was at 1.7 at a HR of 145, but I ran out of lancelets so I had to stop the test there.) I rarely run at this heart rate and it felt like a decently hard effort, and I’m curious why this is the case. I could definitely run ~5 miles here but probably not a half marathon.

It seems like it could be:
1. Test was wrong, need to retest. This doesn’t seem like this is the case. I tested at 110bmp (1.2), 115bmp (1.1), 125bmp (1.3), 135bmp(1.4), and 145bpm(1.7).
2. That is my AeT and I am just not used to running at that pace/effort.
3. I have been miss judging what an easy/moderate effort is and I have been running to easy.

It seems like it might be a combination of 2 and 3. Does that sound plausible?

Topic

[Dada]

Dada on August 17, 2020 at 4:45 pm #44363

I’m sorry, I can’t help you but I’m also interested. And since there is no chance to subscribe to topics anymore, I need to reply.

Dada

[Anonymous]

Anonymous on August 18, 2020 at 8:51 pm #44396

Aamm;

a 10bpm increase in AeT is not at all unusual. It would normally come with quite noticeable speed increase. If you’ve been training at 130 then this new pace is going to feel uncomfortably fast mainly because your running economy at this new faster pace is relatively poor.

That’s pretty easy to fix with some faster running. My preferred way to start to sprinkle in faster paced running is with pick ups. You can read about those in Training for the Uphill Athlete

Scott

[Anonymous]

Anonymous on September 7, 2020 at 10:41 am #44800

Also: there’s no such thing as too easy. Lower intensities will have a lower stimulus, but you’ve demonstrated that training below AeT is still beneficial. Many people get caught up trying to be right at AeT the whole time, but that’s not necessary.

[derekosborne22]

derekosborne22 on September 7, 2020 at 11:03 am #44801

Hi Scott,

Just for the avoidance of doubt, I assume the “too easy” statement refers to training done within Z1 and Z2. My understanding is that anything below Z1 is “recovery” and hence has little to no training stimulus. Whilst it won’t do any damage, equally it won’t drive any adaptation.

Agree though about trying to be right on AeT. I made that mistake early on and now work my base sessions around the Z2 mid point and don’t get hung up when it drifts either side of that.

Thanks for clarification.
Derek

[Anonymous]

Anonymous on September 14, 2020 at 11:31 am #45038

Just for the avoidance of doubt, I assume the “too easy” statement refers to training done within Z1 and Z2. My understanding is that anything below Z1 is “recovery” and hence has little to no training stimulus. Whilst it won’t do any damage, equally it won’t drive any adaptation.

As usual, it depends on the athlete. For the first few years, that may be true. But eventually, most training hours will be in Zone 1 because the speed of higher zones is too stressful to account for the majority of volume. At that point, the metabolic cost of Zone 2 is still low, but the neuromuscular cost is high. It starts to feel almost as fatiguing as Zone 3.

When that happens, Zone 2 training will shift from continuous sessions to an interval format to reduce the stress.

[derekosborne22]

derekosborne22 on September 14, 2020 at 12:03 pm #45040

Thanks for clarification Scott – makes sense.

Derek