87.4 mile week last week. Buddy of mine who will be running Boston next spring who is training for a marathon in Amsterdam next month asked me to do his long run with him this weekend. He pays a coach to tell him what to do for some reason so I agreed to do his prescribed long run workout. The workout was as such:
2 miles EZ
3 miles @ 6:30 pace target (actual 6:35)
8 miles @ 7:30 pace target (actual 7:20)
3 miles @ 6:30 pace (actual 6:25)
2 miles Cooldown
Ended up being 18 miles at average 7:11 pace. Average HR for the workout was 137 bpm
Former Bad Ass
I ran 50 total for last week, including a 15 miler on the TM yesterday. Shooting for a bit more this week before I start tapering for Chicago.
I need to get back to the 60mpw and that will happen after Chicago. Between 80 hour work weeks, the BP issue and the elevation tiredness I got post race, I needed a bit of a break.
Damaris
Hope, it's a proper place
I want to share my thoughts about the heart rate efficiency, HRE=HR*Pace, illustrated by recent personal data. This is similar to MAF test.
Short text at https://drive.google.com/file/d/17wK0y5p7rYlMRBogpZ9yicdnV191E1qx/view?usp=sharing
I ran 50 total for last week, including a 15 miler on the TM yesterday. Shooting for a bit more this week before I start tapering for Chicago. I need to get back to the 60mpw and that will happen after Chicago. Between 80 hour work weeks, the BP issue and the elevation tiredness I got post race, I needed a bit of a break.
Dang, I don't know how you do that. A single 80 hour work week completely incapacitates me. Unbelievable!
I've heard of people having problem using their GPS at the Chicago Marathon. Is that a real thing or a myth?
I lost my rama
GPS is pretty wonky in the downtown areas, the start and mid-way points of the race. Here's the course map of the downtown area. Notice the nice straight lines as it follows the main roads...
Here's my Garmin GPS map from the race last year. I'm pretty sure I didn't deviate from the course this much, haha!
Still, I really loved this race.
3/17 - NYC Half
4/28 - Big Sur Marathon DNS
6/29 - Forbidden Forest 30 Hour
8/29 - A Race for the Ages - will be given 47 hours
Hope, it's a proper place I want to share my thoughts about the heart rate efficiency, HRE=HR*Pace, illustrated by recent personal data. This is similar to MAF test. Short text at https://drive.google.com/file/d/17wK0y5p7rYlMRBogpZ9yicdnV191E1qx/view?usp=sharing
I've never thought about this but it makes sense to me. I actually like this idea better than a MAF or Hadd Test because it looks like you can run this test without ever looking at your watch. Correct? (I hate doing those tests because you have to micromanage your effort by constantly looking at your watch which is highly annoying).
What would be interesting to me is how a person's HRE varies over a range of effort. In other words, if you were to find a flat course and were to start at an EZ aerobic pace and SLOWLY increased your effort over a period of time until you hit your perceived threshold, would a plot of HRE (y-axis) over time (x-axis) be flat? I'm betting its relatively flat until you hit your true threshold at which point your HRE will start to increase rapidly? Perhaps that inflection point in the graph is your TRUE threshold?
than a MAF or Hadd Test because it looks like you can run this test without ever looking at your watch. Correct?
Yes, it is. MAF or Hadd Test are from old times, when people had no sport watches. Now, the life is much easy.
If you are well fitted and you are below your anerobic threshold (AT), your HRE does not change, though HR and pace change. This is just manifestation of a law of the energy conservation. Each heart beat brings a portion of oxygen with blood into your muscles, and the oxygen is consumed to produce energy. The energy to overcome 1 km in the same conditions should be the same and independent of pace or HR, if you use the same running technique and your blood is not poisoned by lactate, that is if HR is below AT. This fact is illustrated with the second graph in the text.
Yeah, the GPS does not work well for the first 5-6 miles at Chicago and right at the end (but then, not by much). it's funny because it works after Mile 5-6 and those latter miles include downtown miles and miles around the Sears tower and it works there fine.
That's so strange. I'd probably get a footpod for that race to track my distance/pace then. I think I'd go crazy not knowing for sure how I was doing for time. Although, that may be a good opportunity to just race strictly to heart rate and just look for the mile markers.
For pacing, I'd use a pace band and watch (timer) and go by mile markers. Are you running Chicago? If so, I wasn't aware of that (sorry if I missed it).
I tried a footpod in Chicago before to no avail. Now I just run the first 5-6 miles by HR and looking at the timer between miles until the miles start working properly.
And I'll be there at Chicago. I didn't know or didn't remember you were as well, SD!
I think that's probably true but doesn't that graph represent a run in which you are never crossing your threshold? I know you are speeding up a lot but 160 bpm / 4:20 min/km might still be below that threshold value. In your graph, your HRE varied due to the changes in elevation, so it's difficult to see just how flat your HRE was over the range of effort from 130 bpm to 160 bpm.
What I'm curious about is if you modified the workout and purposely went well over your threshold at the end of the run on a flat track. If so, I wonder if we would see a sharp inflection at threshold due to the sudden difficulty of the delivery of oxygen and the saturation of the energy delivery system. I drew a crude plot to demonstrate what I'm thinking:
Basically you'd start the workout at low effort and increase it slowly from left to right on the graph, all the while collecting HRE data. At the end you are basically running all out, full burn. I'm just curious if the graph would look something like what I drew here. If it did, you could make a note of the point where HRE starts to rapidly increase and note what your Heart Rate is on the X axis. In theory, you could literally pace your marathon somewhere just below that HR (even closer in the half marathon) without fear of hitting the wall. Does this logic make sense, or am I way off?
SD_BlackHills,
yes, in my graphs given, I have not crossed the threshold. Actulally, in 2014 my HM pace was 4:20 as shown in the second graph, so after 1:30 hour with this pace I'd be closely facing the threshold. If HR is 130, then I could run 4-5 hours without HRE uprise.
you could literally pace your marathon somewhere just below that HR
yes, it is. Actually this is well known fact of ultra marathon runners. They know what is a safe HR threshold, and as far the HR is below they can run as as long as they refuel with gels. For the faster marathon, the average marathon HR should be 87-90% of AT
I tried a footpod in Chicago before to no avail. Now I just run the first 5-6 miles by HR and looking at the timer between miles until the miles start working properly. And I'll be there at Chicago. I didn't know or didn't remember you were as well, SD!
Oops, I didn't mean to imply I'm running in Chicago. I am not. Someday, I likely will. Our corporate headquarters are there so I travel there on occasion, in fact I will be there next month. Maybe I just need to time a business trip with the marathon one of these years.
I'm signed up for a local half marathon race the same day as the Chicago Marathon this year.
SD_BlackHills, yes, in my graphs given, I have not crossed the threshold. Actulally, in 2014 my HM pace was 4:20 as shown in the second graph, so after 1:30 hour with this pace I'd be closely facing the threshold. If HR is 130, then I could run 4-5 hours without HRE uprise. you could literally pace your marathon somewhere just below that HR yes, it is. Actually this is well known fact of ultra marathon runners. They know what is a safe HR threshold, and as far the HR is below they can run as as long as they refuel with gels. For the faster marathon, the average marathon HR should be 87-90% of AT
I guess it depends on how you define AT but my perceived threshold is about 90% MaxHR. I assume you are referring to AT as the aerobic threshold or the point at which you are starting to struggle to deliver oxygen? From experience, by feel, I'm very borderline OK at 90% MaxHR but anything above that, I feel my breathing change dramatically. That's the point where I feel like I'm drawing oxygen from very high in my chest instead of down low in a comfortable breathing state.
In my races, I almost always end up at around an average of 85% MaxHR in the marathon and around an average of 88% MaxHR in the Half Marathon. But I'm just your basic hobby runner. I know that the really fast guys in the 2:30 range can run the marathon around 88% MaxHR but that is likely due to their unbelievable, incredible fitness. They also are on their feet at least 20 minutes less than me which helps!