[Rachel]

Rachel on April 19, 2020 at 8:46 pm · in reply to: Bonk in fasted long run #40664

have you thought about dialing back the intensity of your long run? It sounds like you are mainly carb burning if you bonk after 2.5 hours. I found last year the combo of fasted exercise & eating way more fat helped me. In fact I need to work on that again this year! You can really jump start by going high fat low carb but it’s kinda painful, at least it was for me (everything will be harder for a week or two).

[Rachel]

Rachel on April 9, 2020 at 2:10 pm · in reply to: SI Joint Pain #40352

There are a few exercises that really help my back out — I have some sort of ongoing SI joint issue/pelvic rotation that I’ve been working on now for a while but it’s mostly under control. I find doing core work & back work especially helps (I do a lot of Pilates exercises) but the following two exercises have really helped: bird dog and dead bug.

Bird dog is the one where you are on hands & knees and point opposite arm and leg while keeping your back flat.

Dead bug. Lie on your back with hands and knees up in the air (dead bug). Then lower opposite arm and leg so they are hovering over the floor. I like to do this on my foam roller for an added challenge (put one arm on the floor to stabilize so you don’t fall off!)

Also, for some reason for me, I find doing leg & glute work helps as well. It seems to get me all lined up again. Pilates in particular has helped. I also have a corrective exercise but you’d want to get that direct from a PT I think. The exercise is one sided to get you back in alignment.

[Rachel]

Rachel on February 10, 2020 at 8:30 pm · in reply to: requesting help interpreting drift rate test #37960

The Scosche is worn on the upper forearm. I’ve worn it & my Polar H10 at the same time and got similar readings (I had two watches on to record).

[Rachel]

Rachel on January 10, 2020 at 12:37 pm · in reply to: HR issues after recovery week #35937

Are you sure you are fully recovered? Three days of recovery that have hour long workouts would not be recovery for me, but we are all different. Have you looked at your overnight HR rate or tried the Rusko orthostatic test? I’ve noticed my overnight HR tends to rise over a 3 week build cycle, then goes back down to lower end of my range during my recovery week.

[Rachel]

Rachel on January 8, 2020 at 11:40 am · in reply to: Article with cautions on female fasted training #35733

I think Roche makes too many jumps in his logic in this article. First he makes the case for fasted runs. Then he jumps to this talk about a “low-energy state” and doesn’t define what it is. Almost all the negative implications for women arise out of this “low energy” state, where one’s hormones get out of whack, etc. He seems to equate fasted exercise with being in this low energy state. I don’t see any evidence for that. It almost seems like the opinion of a carb-burner who can’t fathom going for a run without fueling up beforehand.

Then he claims women oxidize fat well naturally like we don’t need to try to improve it. And that fasting is bad for everyone’s mental health.

There was one claim I found interesting: “For example, a 2010 study in the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport found markers for muscle adaptations responded better in non-fasted female athletes, with male athletes responding more to fasting.”

[Rachel]

Rachel on December 18, 2019 at 12:44 pm · in reply to: How would you imitate ski mountaineering for an AeT test? #34591

I’ll see if I can find the TP workout to share, but what I did was skin up trying to stay at my AeT or below. At the top I took off my skins and skied down, then put the skins back on for another lap. Again I stayed at AeT or below for the second lap. At the time I wasn’t intending for it to be an AeT test but later I noticed I had under 5% drift, and that other than the quick ski break in the middle it was as close as I was going to get to a high altitude AeT test. My ski area only has 1100 feet of vert so it would be a little hard to find an hour long route to the top.

[Rachel]

Rachel on December 16, 2019 at 1:59 pm · in reply to: How would you imitate ski mountaineering for an AeT test? #34427

I would go do the actual activity. Last year one day I skinned the same ski slope twice (1000 feet, about ~30 minutes of uphill each time) and used it as an AeT test. I just compared the HR and time to do the laps and calculated the drift. There is a little time in between but it seemed minimal. Or if you have a big mountain that you can go up for an hour, although I wonder about the effects of being at a higher altitude for the second half.

[Rachel]

Rachel on December 8, 2019 at 4:11 pm · in reply to: pa:hr on Training Peaks free version #33951

can you share a link or screenshot? I’m guessing the Pa:HR is the right one, and the premium feature is that it lets you select just part of the workout to analyze. I just gave in after two weeks of free TP and bought the membership again. Couldn’t live without seeing my fitness number I guess. 😉

[Rachel]

Rachel on November 22, 2019 at 3:33 pm · in reply to: How to "count" weight carried #32477

I would count it. Last year I had to start adding extra TSS when I skinned up my local ski hill because the workout had a strong ME effect with the heavy gear on my feet. I think I just added 10% per 1000 feet though vs weighing everything.

[Rachel]

Rachel on November 3, 2019 at 2:00 pm · in reply to: [AeT Drift Test] Hard to dial in initial HR #31107

It looks like the average for the first half is 162 and second half 168. Average of first three minutes is 155, and drift is 3.7%. Probably that 155 is a good number to use unless I did something wrong. If you have lap averages that would be easier to look at and a graph is helpful too.

[Rachel]

Rachel on October 14, 2019 at 9:02 am · in reply to: Aerobic Threshold #30228

It sounds like you should test your AnT with the 30 minute test, I bet it is higher than you think. AnT is supposed to be an effort you can maintain for 30 minutes to an hour depending on how well-trained you are.

[Rachel]

Rachel on October 5, 2019 at 12:28 pm · in reply to: AeT Results Question #29477

What was the average HR for the first 2-3 minutes of the test? Personally I would either retest soon or just add 3 bpm or so (to the starting HR) until the next test.

[Rachel]

Rachel on October 3, 2019 at 1:30 pm · in reply to: Z3 for over 7 hours? #29377

thanks Scott, the pace overall felt Z1/Z2 for sure. Probably a bit faster because I wasn’t using HR alarms but not drastically different.

I can’t really breathe through my nose well, I’m definitely not one of those people who would come up with a high number nose breathing. Especially right now with fall weeds.

I did an AnT test today but I ran out of mountain! I got 167 for today’s session (looking at the last 15 minutes, I went for 25 minutes total.). I also averaged 166 for an uphill mile race I did last month, so that 173 result may have been a fluke or just a really good day.

I’m going to try to confirm the result again. I’ll either try my muscle O2 sensor’s lactate test or find a longer hill. But 167 would not be as bad ADS-wise — sea level goal AeT would be 150, so my altitude AeT may well only be in low 140s.

[Rachel]

Rachel on October 2, 2019 at 11:35 am · in reply to: AeT Test #2 #29325

When I have gotten 2% drift I usually just add 1-2 beats.

[Rachel]

Rachel on September 23, 2019 at 2:46 pm · in reply to: AeT Progression (so far) #28941

I’ve averaged almost 11 hours a week since Oct 1st last year. It feels like slow progress but now that I’ve done my training plan for almost year I finally feel like I’m not always going at a crawl. Now to work on improving my running form…