Looking at the other thread you posted, it looks like you’re fitting in a couple of days of running per week. You might find value in (slowly) ramping up to running 5+ days per week. If you can recover from an easy 3-mile jog quickly enough to do it again the next morning, and the next – that’d suggest that your pace is nice and aerobic. Kelly Starrett’s book “Ready to Run” is a helpful guide if you’re getting started with running. Or Pose running, Chi running… Good running form, sufficient strength and mobility, and patience are important. Avoid injury at all costs!
Reed
Forum Replies Created
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ParticipantReed on January 15, 2021 at 2:29 pm · in reply to: AeT Heart Rate Drift Test – Negative Result #49333Participant
Looks like you might be able to purchase a copy here: https://uphillathlete.com/product/uphill-athlete-athlete-book/
ParticipantReed on January 15, 2021 at 8:07 am · in reply to: AeT Heart Rate Drift Test – Negative Result #49309Oh man, More Mesa! What a great spot…
What’s leading you to target 135bpm? Can you elaborate on what you mentioned about your longest run being 45 minutes?
ParticipantOne way to look at this might be – what would it take for your summer climbing plans to be mostly capacity-building? Like you said, using smaller mountains and shorter climbs. If you aren’t looking to build up to one peak (one major event or window of peak fitness), then periodization becomes a bit less important.
What would a typical summer week look like for you? If you’re training 15 hours per week, as an example, and the smaller hikes / climbs that you’re thinking about are half-day endeavors, then you could perhaps just think of those as your long aerobic workout for the week, 20-30% of total volume.
ParticipantReed on January 12, 2021 at 11:28 am · in reply to: Fasted long run – Speeding up in later stages? #49202@pezrosi, I’m most curious why you think you’re aerobically deficient. If you have a background in road marathon racing, working within some coaching structure, and are also fit enough to go out for a 4-hour run in a fasted state – maybe there are some other bottlenecks to try and identify and focus on.
ParticipantAssuming you had a lengthly, gentle warmup prior to this test (20-30 minutes), it looks like your blood lactate crossed 2mmol/L somewhere around 170bpm, just a bit faster than 10km/h. Seems like a decent approximation of your aerobic threshold / VT1. If you’re following the Uphill Athlete zone system, that’d be the top end of Zone 2.
Anaerobic threshold, where lactate hits 4mmol/L, looks like it’s somewhere around 185bpm. A field test (how fast can you sustain for 30-60 minutes?) would also be useful to perform. I’m confused by the length of time of those test stages – looks like they varied from ~5 minutes to 10+ minutes?
ParticipantGotcha – for those two workouts you linked, after 15-20 minutes of warmup, you did ~7 miles in the next hour (~9:00/mi pace) at ~165 with minimal drift. Looks to me like you should be pretty confident in your results. Erring on the conservative side, you could consider a wide Z2 (15bpm wide, roughly 165-180bpm) and spend more time in Z1 even if it means a 9:30 pace for a while.
I’m not anywhere near your level of 600hrs/year, yet I did have some success at speeding up my AeT running speed from ~9 min/mi to ~8 min/mi. See https://www.reedshea.com/posts/2019/06/training-progress/
If you’re a data junkie like me, the lactate meter is great. But it’s not necessary.
I finished a few ultras (slowly). I trained decently well, but was pretty beat up afterwards. Years of intermittent strength training in the form of squats and deadlifts gave me some strength, but not enough all-around toughness and certainly not very much deep abdominal strength. It took months and months, and picking easier forms of the exercises, but Scott’s routine was hugely helpful. Highly recommended. Be patient and consistent with it.
By the way – there’s some great discussion elsewhere on this forum about fasted training, and some of the differences between men and women. Might be worth taking a look. Runs longer than 90 minutes might be more useful to fuel for, either beforehand or starting at 60-90 minutes in to the run.
ParticipantThat’d be interesting to see – if your pace info in TrainingPeaks is accurate (maybe it’s not?), your AeT pace at a 3% grade was something like 9:15/mi pace at ~183bpm. I’m curious how much impact that grade has vs. a 1% grade or a run outside on flat.
If you’re looking for another way to triangulate, a lactate meter might be a useful tool. Not cheap ($300 or so plus maybe $10-20 of strips per test), but a useful tool. I purchased mine from Nova (http://novabiomedical.com/lactateplusmeterstore/).
And if you haven’t already, maybe try out Scott’s Killer Core workout two or three times a week for the next six months. Every time I’ve checked my ego at the door and scaled an exercise back to an easier version, it’s still been super hard but has led to more improvements. I still can’t to an L-sit, though. 🙂
ParticipantSummarizing the workouts you linked to, I see:
- ~30 minute anaerobic test suggests AnT at ~192bpm, 7:46/mi pace
- 1hr aerobic workout, 164bpm, 10:11/mi pace, 2.67% drift
- 1hr aerobic workout, 170bpm, 9:32/mi pace, -0.74% drift
- 1hr aerobic workout, 183bpm, 9:18/mi pace, 1.22% drift
I’m guessing that you may have had slightly higher drift at 185bpm (i.e. your last workout where the chest strap cut out), and that you could conservatively consider your AnT to be 190bpm, AeT to be 180bpm.
You might consider making Z4 to be >190bpm, Z3 180-190bpm, Z2 165-180bpm, Z1 140-165bpm, and target spending more time in Z1 than anything else.
With 600 yearly hours of training, it seems like you might have opportunity to increase strength / force production and increase both your AnT and AeT speed, depending on your training goals. If your AeT speed on a relatively flat treadmill increased to an 8:00/mi or 7:30/mi pace, that training might also get you closer to 4mph or 5mph for an ultra.
ParticipantA few ideas & resources that might be helpful:
- Interlace your fingers between your toes, and gently pull / twist / push for a few minutes. Similarly, put a towel on the ground and practice picking it up with your toes.
- Book recommendations: Becoming a Supple Leopard, Fixing Your Feet
- Cushioned shoes, as suggested – I like Altra shoes a lot
ParticipantTry Nova – from their website, “International orders, please call 781-894-0800.” https://novabiomedical.com/lactateplusmeterstore/
ParticipantReed on December 22, 2020 at 1:27 pm · in reply to: Heart Rate Drift Test on Track – Z2 Heart Rate #48479Looks to me like you’ve got a good handle on it. Some decoupling of pace and heart rate, but looking at the last 50 minutes of your run, that was about 4% decoupling (Pa:Hr in TrainingPeaks). Your AeT speed looks like it’s right around 9:30 min/mile on flat.
Time focused in zone 1, below 150 bpm for you, will be time well spent. Last year, on about five hours of training per week, I improved my AeT speed from 9:05 min/mile to 8:03 min/mile. https://www.reedshea.com/posts/2019/06/training-progress/
ParticipantReed on December 18, 2020 at 12:27 pm · in reply to: Unusual AeT Results and HR Zones for a First Time Trainee #48359183 AnT / 171 AeT = 7% difference, which suggests a decent aerobic capacity without a big deficit to make up (i.e., no aerobic deficiency syndrome). Heart rates vary widely from individual to individual. As an example, my aerobic threshold heart rate is about 183, anaerobic threshold is about 196, and the maximum heart rate I’ve ever recorded is about 208bpm. Doesn’t mean I’m especially fit or unfit, though. Your pace at these physiological markers is much more important – going from where you are now, where a “steady jog” (9-10 minute / mile pace?) at AeT turns into a fast pace while still at AeT…
ParticipantI’ve been using a Lactate Plus (https://novabiomedical.com/lactateplusmeterstore/) for several years. Works great. It’s not exactly new technology, so I would guess that any of the lactate meters will give you reasonable results. I found that some are available only in certain countries, probably due to medical device regulations. There are some articles on this website as well as forum discussions on the topic.
ParticipantProbably a good plan to try another go on a track or a flat course. Looks like your heart rate monitor only cut out for a minute or two – no big deal. Make sure your battery is OK and you have connectivity to your watch, make sure that the chest strap is snug. Wetting the strap and reducing static charge (e.g. from multiple layers of staticky tech shirts) help too.
Heart rate is very individual. If you can run an eight-minute mile at your aerobic threshold, and I can only run an 8:30 mile, you’re more fit than me. Knowing that your AeT is 150bpm is very valuable for your training, but comparing the fact that your heart rate was 150bpm to my 140 bpm (or 160bpm) isn’t relevant. So – ignore the Garmin or formulaic max heart rate numbers.
Also – the screenshots you posted show about a 7% decoupling of pace and heart rate. The elevation change might affect that, but maybe not a ton because it was a loop. That would suggest that this effort was above your aerobic threshold. Did you make sure to give yourself an easy 20+ minute warmup before diving in to the AeT test?