This is my first post. I have been a long time lurker, and have benefited from reading the collective wisdom in this forum.
I am seeking advice on HR during training and racing - I am a little confused about how my HR is acting. Current max HR is 192 / Resting HR ~48, 36 years old. I have a sprint distance race this coming weekend and hopefully, a half IM in early May. The remainder of the season, I have a few more sprints, a few olympic distance events and maybe another half. This is my first season back after about a 7 year break.
I began training last June by building my base - keeping my HR below 154 on my runs and bike workouts with maybe once/twice a week doing either a tempo or interval run or bike. I tried to do the same thing during my swim workouts (couldn’t use the HR monitor in the pool). Since September, I have picked up the tempo/interval work, but kept a maybe one or two run/bike workouts in the low zone.
Recently during my tempo runs (try to keep my HR above 170), I don’t seem to be getting into a groove until about 10-15 minutes into the run. I am doing a 10 minute warm-up before starting the tempo run - 10 minutes below 154. However, it does not feel as if I am warmed up or I feel a little winded early on in the tempo run when my HR is around 170. This feeling goes away in about 10-15 minutes and I feel great and typically finish the tempo portion of the run strong with my HR in the low 170s. After the initial feeling described earlier, I can keep my HR in that range for about an hour. The same thing has happened during my swim workouts - I do my 1100 warm-up and start the intervals and feel a little winded early in the interval set and this passes as I progress into the middle of my intervals.
I have generally been training by trying to keep my HR either below 154 or above 170 during tempo workouts, during interval workouts my HR goes higher (upper 180s) and drops a little lower (160s).
Here are my questions:
(1) Any ideas what is going on with my HR during my tempo/interval workouts?
(2) At what HR should I be racing? I am sure that it is different for a sprint, olympic and half - let me know your thoughts based on my numbers above.
(3) Is it possible for me to be faster racing at a lower HR at any distance? The reason that I ask is during the fall I did one workout on the bike in which I kept my HR below 154 and then later in the week did the same ride as a tempo ride (HR above 170) - and there was only 1 mph difference in average speed.
HR is very individulistic. Your numbers will be very different than someone else. That’s why percentages of the key numbers( Max HR etc . .) are what’s more important.
HR will vary from day to day depending on your overall level of fatigue/rest. Heat also will impact HR.
HR at higher levels of exertion can take up to 5 minutes, or more to stabilize at a given work-load. That’s why it’s hard to really count on HR as an accurate guide for efforts of less than 5 minutes.
When “tempo” running, it should actually feel relativly,“easy” for the first 10 minutes or so. It’s only in the last 5 -10 minutes of a 20 minutes session that it should start to feel hard. If you are really straining, struggling and loosing form in the final 5 minutes. Then you have started out the tempo session too fast.
Without going into too much detail. The best use of a heart rate monitor is during workouts below anerobic threshold. Below threshold it is possible to steady state your heart rate. Over time you will get a slight increase in heart rate (called cardiovascular drift) but this isn’t significant.
Once you get over threshold intensity, heart rate tends to lose it’s effectiveness as you can no longer steady state your heart rate. Since racing is above threshold (well at least for most people in short distance races) it’s not a great tool. As mentioned previously core temperature greatly effects heart rate. For every one degree increase in core temperature you have a 7 - 10 beat increase in heart rate. In a race a hot swim can raise your core temperature easily a degree or two and can get higher with a hot bike. I guess that helps answer some people’s question of why their heart rate is higher for the same effort in the race.
Not to say this data isn’t useful for a coach it just takes a little more knowledge to use this information correctly.
Fleck, RocketDog and Coach - Thanks for taking the time to read my post and provide your advice.
I am still trying to figure out how to best use my HR monitor with my training plan. It seems that I am training too much in the upper zone.
Coach - can you point me to an article or explain how to determine my anerobic threshold? As I mentioned, my max HR is 192. I have been trying to do steady state work at 170-174 and can hold it in that range for 45-50 minutes. I think that my anerobic threshold (in terms of HR) is likely lower.
Peter Janssen has written 2 excellent books on the topic “Training Lactate and Pulse - Rate” and more recently “Lactate Threshold Training”.
I can’t give you a threshold heart rate from your max heart rate. It is a trainable variable so will vary with your fitness where as your max heart rate won’t change. The most accurate way to determine threshold is in a lab using a lactate step test or lactate minimum tests but you don’t need to do these tests.
The simplist way to estimate threshold heart rate is to do a one hour time trial in cycling or running (note: threshold heart rate is sport specific so you can’t do a run test and apply it to the bike) and simple take your average heart rate for the test as your threshold heart rate. As long as you gave a maximal effort it should be quite accurate. If you don’t want to do a max hour test just remember when your doing threshold work it should be done at about your hour race pace. If you can’t hold the pace your going at for an hour your going too fast.
Their has been a huge amount of research done into swimming and anaerobic threshold starting from Mader et. al. research in the early 1970’s. One of their most interesting findings was that a “timed 30 minute maximal swim” correlated very closely to anerobic threshold. Since most people don’t like wearing heart rate monitors in the water (at least without a wetsuit to keep the belt tight) this comes in handy.
If a swimmer goes 2000 meters in the 30 minute swim, they can then estimate their threshold pace is about 1:30 per 100 meters in training sets.
The key on threshold training is you don’t want to accumulate a lot of extra lactic acid that occurs above threshold pace so your better off being slightly on the low side. So I usually use the calculated lactate threshold at the top of the zone and go 5% lower as the minimum of training the zone.
Coach - Thanks. Your post is very helpful. I am going to pick up Peter Janssen’s latest book. I am also going to do the tests that you suggested to get an estimate of my threshold heart rate. Thanks for including the swimming information.
One follow-up question, how much time should I spend working out at the lactate threshold level for each sport each week. I realize that this is likely an event / goal / current fitness specific question. I am hoping to do a 1/2 IM in May and one at the end of the season / goal is to be competitive and current fitness level is good.
If the above can’t be answered with the information provided (or if you have no patience left) - you can just tell me to read Janssen’s book.
None of this sounds unusual: When I did 4X1 mile repeats a couple weeks ago, the first mile my average HR was 159 (85 percent of max) while my last one was 168 (90 percent); all were about 6 min. miles and the rest was 3 min. between them (HR back down to 120 or so). Good on you doing an HOUR of tempo (HR above 85 percent). That’s great.
Thanks TB. Keeping my HR that high for 45 - 50 minutes takes some effort and I am not sure whether such an effort is worth it in terms of pace/speed. As I mentioned, while I need to do another experiment - I think that I may be faster keeping my HR lower. I am also concerned about over-training and the effects that this has on my body.
I can’t give you any exact specifics, coaching isn’t an exact science. A lot of people have different theories, their are too many variables to control to do well controlled studies on what is the best method. Plus even if you could control all of the variables everyone responds differently to training programs so what is best for someone isn’t always best for someone else.
That said I’ll give you some basic physiology to help you to decide for yourself. The average person has enough glycogen supplies to exercise in a single sport at threshold for about 60 - 90 minutes. All races under 1 hour the limiting factor on performance is lactate accumulation, whereas all races longer than 1 hour duration the limiting factor is glycogen depletion.
The major problem with doing too many threshold and faster workouts is they use up glycogen faster than the slower runs which predominantly use fat. Therefore, the amount of quality work you do is very limited to how well you can replace these glycogen stores which comes down to fitness and recovery strategies (ie. fueling within 15 minutes post workout (carbohydrate window)). For these reasons, most triathletes probably shouldn’t do more than one session a week in each of the sports probably with a total volume of 30 - 45 minutes. Also don’t have to do as 1 long block can do something like 3 x 15 minutes which makes the workout easier and helps refueling if you use the breaks properly.
That’s good info. and conforms with conventional wisdom.
Is there any downside to adding a “smidgeon” of speed/sprints? Assuming you don’t injure yourself? I’m talking a few 25s and 50s at absolute max. in the pool; “strides” or even 200s on the track; etc. (assuming a proper warmup, drills, etc.) ? I realize tempo (15 to 45 min. at 85+ percent) is more important. If so, when’s a good time to add such speed (which day (easy? hard?) middle or end of workout?) Just wondering.
Again a lot of coaches have different philosophies on this and depends on the distance your training for. First you have to classify speed. Some people classify maximal 25’s as you suggested as speed while other people would classify mile repeats as speed work.
Maximal 25’s swimming would be classified as training your alactic power. Which for most triathletes has limited use. A coach could argue that doing some of this training will improve your neuromuscular coordination but probably not the best use of your time on a regular basis. However, not harmful if your properly warmed up.
Much more benefit in doing speed intervals that train maximal aerobic power (generally equivalent to the race speed you would hold during a 4 - 10 minute race). Remember the key word is intervals, don’t do them as one single effort or they become a race.
For example, If you can race a 6 minute mile an example workout may be 8 x 400 meters (each 400 run in 90 seconds) with a 200 - 400 jog recovery between each (fitter you are the less recovery you will need).
In terms of Periodization, the general rule to follow is the higher the intensity work you do prior to the lower intensity work (Quality First). This applies to a daily workout as well as weekly planning.
Following warmup in a swim you would do drills prior to a long hard set rather than following it because your trying for neural gains and if you do the drills when your fatigued your more likely to be doing them incorrectly than prior to being fatigued.
Same thing with weekly planning where you want to do the quality work when fresher and the volume later in the week. Obviously training 3 sports in triathlons makes this harder than in single sports so some times not always possible to follow this guideline.