Thank you very much for your clarifying answers. They helped me a lot reaching a (momentary) conclusion.
Michael, you mean this page?
As I understand, the main thing to rise at AeT is performance. The more aerobically deficient the athlete is, the more rises also HR, which seems to be no matter for both of us, I don’t expect too much rise of HR at AeT.
Scott, hearing that lactate at AeT can vary across subjects really helps for understanding. This means, I have to consider the whole picture instead of relying on a single value. I’d guess I’m more a “slow-twitcher”, so am ready to set AeT below 2mM.
Then it is however not the most important thing that AeT is set exactly on the right spot, but to do high volume especially at the point where lactate begins to rise to flatten the curve (Z1). Further do some training in the area where lactate rises (Z2), till up to AeT as defined here at UA and only so much as my body likes, bearing in mind that perceived effort should be light to moderate, motivation to hold the pace for hours is high and recovery quick.
I also take from both of your statements that measuring lactate is really a nice thing. So I will strive to get a device.
In the meantime, I’ll do the following, derived from quite a lot of experience, integrating quite a bit of studies including every bit of information at UA and extensive data collecting with HR belt:
Long sessions (3hr ascent):
1. Start slowly. [HR 115-125]
2. After 15-30 minutes I add a notch of speed to what I know from experience is my sustainable pace and hold that. (I have no problem holding that pace for 3 hours and then day after day) [HR 130-135]
3. For the first hour at sustainable pace because of HR drift I see rising HR. Average of second half [average HR 140] of that first hour is 3.7% higher than first half [average HR 135]. [HR after an hour at sustainable pace is a little bit above 140]
4. HR keeps on rising during the second hour, but always remains below 150. During the third hour HR can increase to 156-160 and then remains stable if I continue (getting slower..).
This should correlate quite well with Z1 training.
Short sessions of 1hr ascent: I do warming up of 10minutes then accelerate to HR 140-145 and hold that pace. After 1hr HR is about 150-155 and average HR of second half still less than 5% higher than average of first half after warming up.
This should still be comfortably within Z2. I can nose breathe the whole time, could hold on for another hour without any problems and it doesn’t feel hard at all, for that I have to push above HR 160 (Estimated AnT is about 165-170).
That intensity goes very fine for my body, I recover quickly and can do it for several days. And it is fun and does definitely feel activating, unlike HR 115 (where HR drift is zero and I’m severely bored). I’m quite curious to see where my training fits in the picture of the lactate chart, though now that I reached this conclusion it doesn’t seem absolutely necessary to get the numbers anymore. Anyway, as soon as I’ve got them I’ll tell you.
Hope that’s useful for somebody.
Interested in hearing what you think. Enjoy your sessions 🙂
