At what intensity should a seasoned athlete run a half marathon at as far as percentage range of LTHR?
Check Daniels vdot chart or McMillian’s table for pace.
I’ve run at as high as 86% of LTHR.
Hi, I’m not looking for time to distance chart but % of LTHR zones to try and run at. Like alex said for 86%
1 hour half marathon or 2? How do you define/determine LTHR?
I’ll need to look at my heart rate data from my last half (1:30) when I am at home. I think my max is low 190’s. My heart rate in the race after the first few miles went from low 170’s to high 170s…and I finished over 180 I think. I paced it fairly evenly after an easy first mile (7:20) but effort went from fairly easy to quite hard by the end…
Dave
In my experience, on race day you’re better off running to a target pace rather than heart rate. Just the extra adrenaline of getting on the start line will bump your numbers a few bpm, so you could end up under pacing yourself.
That said, my LTHR is ~180 bpm (according to the Joe Friel system) and recently ran a 1:30 half marathon at an average of 172, so around 95% LTHR, or low end Zone 4. In hindsight I probably could have pushed this a *little more but not much. *86% would be low end Z2, which sounds very casual for race conditions. How are you calculating this?
As has been mentioned, your predicted finishing time will have a bearing on this as well, if you’re closer to a 1 hour than 2 hours, then you’ll be able to push a much higher % of your LTHR.
Trouble with HR is that it is very variable from person to person.
A couple of years ago when I measured HR a lot more than I do now I ran a 5k with an average HR of 172, a 10k at 169, 10 miles at 165 and a full marathon at 162. If you were to take the 10 mile figure as roughly threshold the marathon was run at 98% of that. HM probably wouldn’t have been much different. They were PB’s (apart from the 10 mile) at the time so were comparable efforts.
As has been said the time is also important - a 1:10 HM is a different race to a 2:00 HM. You are much better off running to pace based on either previous race data or your pace at that LTHR.
The closer you are in time to 1 hour, the higher the percentage of Max LTHR you can go. So time is incredibly important. My wife runs a 2:20 HM, so I have her training for it more like a marathon (with shorter long runs) and have her race it in Z3 / Tempo region. I run a 1:20 HM so I train more like it is a 10K and therefore spend a lot more time in my Threshold region, basically trying to run it in low to mid Z4.
When my wife runs I make he pay close attention to her Heart Rate, as she will be running for a long enough time that popping into Z4 will hurt her a lot more in the long run. I run mostly based on pace (as others have mentioned). I keep track of my heart rate as well, though I normally wait until at least 10 minutes in to even worry about it. I train strictly by heart rate, but I know my pacing.
At what intensity should a seasoned athlete run a half marathon at as far as percentage range of LTHR?
By definition, a 1 hour half marathoner would be running at 100% LTHR… Right? After all, isn’t LTHR based on a one hour max effort?
The closer you are in time to 1 hour, the higher the percentage of Max LTHR you can go. So time is incredibly important. My wife runs a 2:20 HM, so I have her training for it more like a marathon (with shorter long runs) and have her race it in Z3 / Tempo region. I run a 1:20 HM so I train more like it is a 10K and therefore spend a lot more time in my Threshold region, basically trying to run it in low to mid Z4.
When my wife runs I make he pay close attention to her Heart Rate, as she will be running for a long enough time that popping into Z4 will hurt her a lot more in the long run. I run mostly based on pace (as others have mentioned). I keep track of my heart rate as well, though I normally wait until at least 10 minutes in to even worry about it. I train strictly by heart rate, but I know my pacing.
This^^^
Anything under 1:30 go at least 95%. Now giddy up!
A good time will come off constant pace. This is unlikely to be the same thing as constant heart rate - if you run constant pace close to your PR speed then your heart rate will rise through the race. Conversely, if you run at a constant heart rate then you’re likely to be slowing down as the race progresses.
By definition, a 1 hour half marathoner would be running at 100% LTHR… Right? After all, isn’t LTHR based on a one hour max effort?
I believe the most popular method for determining LTHR is by Joe Friel of TrainingPeaks fame, who says the following:
I am asked yet again how to find one’s lactate threshold heart rate (LTHR) by doing a 30-minute time trial. I really don’t understand what seems to be so difficult about this. All that’s required is running (or riding) as hard as you can possibly go for 30 minutes ALL BY YOURSELF. It must be solo. Doing this as a part of a race or with training partners will change the outcome. Your number will be too high. If you want to do it with others or as a part of a race then you need to make it 60 minutes duration instead of 30.
Once you’ve captured the data in your device download it to your software and find your average heart rate for the last 20 minutes. That’s an approximation of your LTHR (also often referred to as anaerobic threshold or functional threshold heart rate). If you don’t have software all you have to do is push the lap button 10 minutes into the test. That will then capture the last 20 minutes as a standalone “interval.” Your average heart rate for that portion is close to your LTHR. Note that this DOES NOT mean that you go easy for 10 minutes and then turn it on with 20 minutes remaining. It’s 30 minutes all out.
Source: http://www.joefrielsblog.com/...ining-your-lthr.html
So yes, by definition a 1-hour race should be done at 100% LTHR intensity. However, I prefer the 30-min solo method for zone determination because for me, heart rate is most useful when I’m training, not racing.
In my experience, the reason you have to **double **the time of the test in a race situation (which seems kind of extreme) is because, as I mentioned above, your heart-rate will be slightly elevated on race day and this may lead to slightly inflated figures that are hard to match up to in a solo training session. The slower pacing of a longer race will compensate for this effect.
To answer the OP’s question, I’ve averaged between 85%-90% of my LTHR in my HM’s.
That being said, I don’t use HR to pace myself, but use the McMillan pace charts. My best HM results have come when I’ve tried to maintain a steady pace. In those cases my average HR has actually been lower than when I surge and slow down during the race.
Mark
I just ran a 1:38 snow half marathon last weekend. That should translate to 1:30 or below road half marathon. My max HR is 192. I spent this amount of time in each zone (rounded and zones with <1% removed):
5% (4:48) aerobic (146-156)
55% (54:09) tempo (157-164)
6% (5:47) subthreshold (165-171)
12% (11:26) aerobic capacity (176-182)
12% (12:33) anaerobic capacity (183-191)
The 24% in high zones might seem a lot but I am putting it on the extra strain of running in snow and the time it took for HRM to adapt to cold (it always read too high for the first few minutes of an activity in winter). Similar half marathon last year (summer) had me at 75% tempo and 25% subthreshold (averaged 159bpm, 162bpm which is pretty close to 86% (165)).
TLDR: 86% sounds about right.
It all depends on time. I’m a sub 1:20 runner and sit at 95+ percent for most of the run…At the 17km point I crank it up until I see stars to the finish. A good test run is 15km threshold run done as 4 on 1 off 3x over. You should be able to hold that pace for the half marathon if your pushing your body to the max.
In my experience, on race day you’re better off running to a target pace rather than heart rate. Just the extra adrenaline of getting on the start line will bump your numbers a few bpm, so you could end up under pacing yourself…
I agree with others with focus on using pace from experience or McMillian. Race day weather can have an impact too on HR. If you hold a near constant pace, your HR should be climbing as you progress throughout the race. For example here are my mile splits with HR (LT zones) for my 1:40 HM (7:40) a few years back in ideal 45-51F race time temps (note before I had GPS and raced off of RPE)
Mi 1 - 7:32, HR Avg 141 (Z1), (into headwind used drafting)
Mi 2 - 7:42, 155 (Z2)
Mi 3 - 7:41, 158 (Z2)
Mi 4 - 7:36, 163 (Z3) (finally started to get warm****)
Mi 5 - 7:42, 164 (Z3)
Mi 6 - 7:11, 167 (Z3) (causeway bridge 1 climb and decent with crossing tailwind****)
Mi 7 - 8:07, 164 (Z3) (lost focus, pay attention to self not others)
Mi 8 - 7:30, 169 (Z4) (with tailwind****)
Mi 9 - 7:39, 169 (Z4)
Mi 10 - 7:45, 169 (Z4) (felt the wall creeping up on me****)
Mi 11 - 7:41, 171 (Z4) (dug deeper, turned onto Causeway 2 and start of the crossing headwind)
Mi 12 - 7:49, 176 (Z5a) (causeway bridge 2 climb and decent****),
Mi 13.1 - 8:22 (7:36), 177 (Z5a) (all I had left)