[wjcdean]

wjcdean on April 14, 2021 at 2:24 am · in reply to: AeT heart rate drift test advice please #53118

Hi Rachel, thanks for the getting back to me. Yes I could certainly have done the same level of exertion the day after, which is a good sign. I’m using the gps tracking on my very cheap and old phone, so I think it struggles to keep up and has a habit of regularly dropping out and then jumping to catch up.

I feel a bit more confident carrying on with what I’m doing now based on what you’ve said. When I got myself a heart rate monitor and found my heart rate was so high I was slightly concerned that I’d been accidentally going zone 3 the whole time. Perhaps I am just one of those outliers that the MAF formula doesn’t work well for.

Here’s my Strava activity of anyone is interested
https://www.strava.com/activities/5115821647

[wjcdean]

wjcdean on March 29, 2021 at 9:28 am · in reply to: starting from scratch #52497

Shashi, yes that’s with a chest strap.

I’m only 2 weeks in having not done any running for the last decade and only doing weekend walks (albeit traipsing around the muddy English countryside with a a bit of up and down). Our gyms open in 2 weeks so I’ll do an AeT test then.

For me at the moment I’m just trying to slowly increase volume and get my knees a bit stronger before launching into this properly. I’m slightly wary of even doing an hour run for the test at the moment having had slightly dodgy knees in the past (although as you say, maybe walking is the answer at the moment anyway!).

[wjcdean]

wjcdean on March 24, 2021 at 7:29 am · in reply to: starting from scratch #52329

Aha, I think I have the answer (thanks to the capillary density section on page 115 of TftNA), looks like it’ll get better over the next month-or-so and then I can start zone training properly once my capillaries regrow and reinflate after a year of being a lockdown sloth.

Misters House and Johnston were clearly not prepared for someone as lazy as me when they wrote the book… I think I need a transition period to get into the main transition period, ha!

[wjcdean]

wjcdean on March 24, 2021 at 2:31 am · in reply to: starting from scratch #52322

Thanks again for an incredibly useful response, it’s great having this forum as a place to be able ask questions.

So my HRM arrived yesterday (polar h9), and I went out to give it a whirl running a 3 mile circuit around my local park, there’s definitely a bit of a hill on it, but I was surprised to see that slowing myself right down from last week (where I was doing 35mins for 3 miles/5km) to a 4mph jog (45mins for same circuit), my heart rate was consistently in the 150-170bpm range. Which was surprising, as I was not out of breath whatsoever and feel 100% today.

Presumably this signifies that I am super aerobically deficient and I need to back off the jogging and just get out walking regularly for a few weeks?

I know the right answer is to do an AeT test, but all the gyms are closed in the UK due to covid and I live in a hilly area so it’s a bit tricky. Would doing two laps of the park give meaningful results as the course is the same on both halves of the workout?

[wjcdean]

wjcdean on March 20, 2021 at 5:27 am · in reply to: starting from scratch #52225

Hi Shashi, thanks for the response, that is really useful to know! I feel like everything is a lot clearer in my mind now.

HRM is on order, in the mean time I did my first run at the beginning of thos week (20 mins power walk warm up, 30 mins jog, 20 mins power walk warm down). I stayed nose breathing the whole time and didn’t feel particularly tired but still ended up with quite sore muscles for a few days after. Is this likely because I strayed into anaerobic? Or just that my leg muscles are still getting used to the extra intensity?
I’ve been hiking 8 hours a week (over 2 sessions) for the last couple of years so my body is used to a bit of exertion. Perhaps I should be doing a mixture of waling and running intervals at this stage.

Cheers

Will