[Reed]

Reed on February 18, 2021 at 6:37 am · in reply to: Only base training/general fitness #50970

Find ways to enjoy the monotony. 🙂 Changing up routes can help. Throw in the occasional higher-speed section. Alternatively – I’ve run my routes along the Charles River so many times that I tend to focus more on thinking through some ideas, observing what thoughts pop into my mind, etc… my version of meditating. If you run with headphones, try leaving them at home for a couple of weeks and seeing how it goes.

If you can get an hour in every day, that’s excellent. Keep at it. Also keep an eye on (1) finding low-hanging fruit wherever you can, like strength or mobility, and (2) aiming for one long run per week that makes up ~20% of your weekly volume.

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Reed on February 17, 2021 at 10:04 am · in reply to: Only base training/general fitness #50946

You should be able to see consistent improvement for a long time – it’s great that you have no immediate goals but are looking to build fitness and capacity. Taking a structured plan like that 24-week mountaineering plan and repeating the base period would be a great idea.

Consistency, gradualness, and modulation are key: https://uphillathlete.com/dreams-are-not-goals/

Spend as much time as you can well below AeT – targeting 10-15 beats below will be a good conservative approach. Slowly improve your strength. I’m not breaking any records, but was able to make really substantial progress with a schedule that looked like this:

• Monday: 30-40 minute Zone 1 jog. 30-40 minute core strength workout (Scott’s Killer Core, easy version), maybe some lunges, etc.
• Tuesday: 30-40 minute Zone 1, maybe a little bit in Zone 2
• Wednesday: 30-40 minute Zone 1, maybe a few striders (10-15 second accelerations)
• Thursday: 30-40 minute Zone 1. 30-40 minute core strength workout
• Friday: 30-40 minute Zone 1
• Saturday: Long run, 60-90 minutes Zone 1
• Sunday: Recovery – rest, walk, or 30-40 minute Zone 1

Really basic, really conservative, and real improvements. Here’s a writeup I did last year on some of this: https://www.reedshea.com/posts/2020/2019-training/

[Reed]

Reed on February 17, 2021 at 9:42 am · in reply to: Strength Workout CTL – Include rest time? #50944

Yes, those should include rest time. For strength training, the key pieces to modulate are repetitions, load, total volume (e.g. reps X sets X weight), rest intervals, etc. Translating that into a single “training stress score” metric is fuzzy at best. I’d suggest thinking about it through the lens of “how hard was that workout, and how long will it take me to recover from it?”

As an illustration, diving into the numbers – a 45-minute Z1 run might translate to ~45 training stress score. Arbitrary units, intended to be a way to bring together these varying types of training stress. Zone 1 is pretty low-intensity, something like 0.6 intensity for 0.75 hours x100 = 45. If you are fit enough to recover from that in less than 24 hours, and be completely ready for your next workout, you might have a “chronic training load” of ~45 or so.

If you do a 1-hour max strength workout, that’s probably going to take a couple of days to recover from. Plugging in a number of about 2x your chronic training load should be a reasonable estimate and be useful to try and help quantify your short-term fatigue.

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Reed on February 17, 2021 at 9:24 am · in reply to: How to avoid fatigue at work (carpenter) #50942

You’re not alone – there was a recent related discussion: https://uphillathlete.com/forums/topic/am-i-training-at-work/

From Scott J.:

If you have any times during the day when you can get off your feet, elevate your legs, even for 10 min at a time this can help a lot. That and more active recovery like foam rolling and stretching. Can you get up extra early and do some training a few days a week before work. It’s easier to work with tired legs than to train after along hard day.

[Reed]

Reed on February 16, 2021 at 8:03 am · in reply to: AeT/AT Test Analysis (Beginner Runner) #50892

Hi Phil,

Echoing Rachel… the warmup seems pretty short, and if you ended your gradual warmup at 135bpm but your AeT is 138 – the warmup wasn’t easy enough. And ramping up every two minutes is pretty fast.

Did they also take lactate measurements? It’s not clear from the PDF what led to the determination of either your AeT or AnT. It seems like they’re in the right ballpark, though.

It sounds to me like you’re making really good, patient, consistent progress. Keep it up! Another four months spending four hours per week training below 140bpm will lead to continued improvements.

One last thought regarding carb / fat ratio and diet: this test is just one data point, and might not be accurate because of those same reasons above. If your diet, intermittent fasting, etc., is giving you energy and making you feel good, keep with it. Carbohydrates are important. Low carb relative to the standard American diet is still plenty of carbohydrates. 🙂

[Reed]

Reed on February 16, 2021 at 7:40 am · in reply to: Lactate test #50889

It’s useful to have someone help, but you can do it yourself. A voice recorder sounds like a great idea. With pen and paper, you can make a little grid with a column each for time (of day, or minutes in to the workout), pace (or speed), heart rate, and blood lactate reading. See attached for a screenshot of my spreadsheet.

The 3-minute intervals make the test a bit shorter, which can be helpful especially if you end up with more stages than you anticipated. Less likelihood of muscular fatigue being a factor and skewing your results. It takes ~30 seconds to hop off the treadmill, stick my finger, jot down the time / speed / heart rate, and the lactate reading when it’s ready 15 seconds later. Then jump back on and speed up for another three minutes of running.

I’ve usually reviewed the workout data later, and used the average heart rate of the last 1-2 minutes of each stage. That helps to deal with any anomalous spikes, and has a side benefit of ending up with a conservative estimate.

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[Reed]

Reed on February 15, 2021 at 1:52 pm · in reply to: Lactate test #50870

Looks to me like you were able to hit your aerobic threshold on your second-to-last test – I’d suggest using ~145bpm as your AeT.

When you get another set of test strips, you could try again. Nice, easy 20-30 minute warmup, and then try to get a reading every 5bpm starting at ~130bpm. I’ve mainly done 3-minute intervals for a testing protocol rather than 5-minute intervals – either is OK. You might also consider tracking your speed, especially since you’re doing this on a treadmill.

[Reed]

Reed on February 9, 2021 at 10:07 am · in reply to: 10 weeks into training my AeT is going down and I’m getting slower? #50627

Sounds like you’re having a fun season! It’d be a good idea to keep up some amount of strength training in parallel with increasing low-intensity aerobic volume. One other idea comes to mind – you mentioned in your original post that your zone 1 workouts were spread over three or four days per week. You might consider bumping that up to six or seven days. If you’re aiming for five hours total, 6x 30-45 minutes and 1x 90-120 minutes might be a more effective stimulus than two 1-hour runs and a 3-hour ski tour…

[Reed]

Reed on January 28, 2021 at 6:32 pm · in reply to: Chamomix Mountain Fit programme question – limitations #50019

I’ve started the program and have found it to be a worthwhile routine. I think the vast majority (maybe all) of the exercises are done standing or lying down, so your ceiling height shouldn’t be an issue. Similarly, there’s snow on the ground outside so my living room doubles as my gym. 🙂

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Reed on January 27, 2021 at 7:28 am · in reply to: Contraceptive pill and performance #49821

Thanks, Diana – yes, a spam filter screened your posts, probably because of the links. Should be visible now.

[Reed]

Reed on January 26, 2021 at 4:25 pm · in reply to: Zone 3 work outs #49795

That’s a great goal. Improving your aerobic base will be really useful to help you be able to recover overnight from a long trek, and be fresh the next morning. Strength training and more time well below your aerobic threshold will be valuable.

Once your aerobic and anaerobic thresholds get closer together, that indicates that your body could probably handle some amount of higher intensity work. It does not mean that you necessarily need to or should target zone 3 or zone 4 workouts.

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Reed on January 23, 2021 at 1:43 pm · in reply to: Leg paralysis when hinging the hip #49666

I think the quadriceps group is driven by the femoral nerve typically supplied from L2, L3, and L4. Very close to your L5 injury. But maybe there’s an issue elsewhere – the nerve passes under or through the sartorius muscle, and can get pinched causing numbness / tingling in the outer thigh. You could try working that muscle with a lacrosse ball or foam roller and seeing if that improves anything. See attachments.

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[Reed]

Reed on January 23, 2021 at 10:23 am · in reply to: Aet Lab test best protocol #49655

The primary purpose of the test should be to try and identify the heart rate that corresponds with your aerobic threshold and perhaps also your anaerobic threshold. If you usually run on flat and do the test on an incline, there will probably be some differences in your efficiency (running economy), but I don’t think that should be a very large factor. I’d suggest that you focus on having a slow, easy, lengthy warmup (20-30 minutes from walking up to a light jog) before the test. Testing stages should be 3-5 minutes.

Running with a weighted pack can be a recipe for injury. It sounds like you might have some ankle / calf issues to try and work on. Do you have enough ankle flexibility? Running or hiking up an incline, if you’re only transmitting force through your toes or the ball of your foot because your heel isn’t touching the ground can be tough on calves.

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Reed on January 21, 2021 at 9:31 am · in reply to: Maximum training time and peaking too soon. #49598

There’s a quotation I’ve seen attributed to Renato Canova: “Training is not the work you do but the effect it has on your body.”

It might be useful to try and identify whether there’s any low-hanging fruit that would allow you to see further improvement with the time that you’re able to devote to training. From my vantage point, ten hours per week is pretty great!

Are you recovering well? Eating well and sleeping enough? Waking up earlier to squeeze in extra training might be counter-productive. Is strength or force production a limiter? Any mobility work that might unlock some performance improvements?

Plotting out a structure of periodization / blocks of focus between now and August should be valuable, too.

[Reed]

Reed on January 21, 2021 at 8:42 am · in reply to: Strength v Endurance timing #49593

You’re probably remembering right, but it’s incomplete advice. Both strength and endurance take a long time to build, especially the structural changes that lead to large improvements. Things like stronger bones, stronger tendons, increased capillary density, increased mitochondrial density – those take a long time for the body to build.

There are some adaptations that are quicker to take effect, and are lost quickly as well. A few sprint workouts can get your nervous system to recruit more of your muscles, and build up some enzymes that will make energy available more rapidly. Those are useful and important – but aren’t a shortcut.

I’m reminded of Lon Kilgore’s book “Fit,” which has a bunch of great ideas about looking at fitness through the lenses of strength, endurance, and mobility. A good balance – but he defines endurance as the ability to run 3-5 miles without stopping. That’s a very, very different approach to “endurance” than you’ll find discussed in “Training for the Uphill Athlete” and on the various articles on this site. Three miles is just a warmup – the aerobic (i.e., endurance) system is just starting to get switched on.