Low HR Training = Another PR

Triathlon Forum
1

Just wanted to throw out another PR coming off exclusively low HR training. On Sunday I dropped my 1/2 Marathon PR from 1:20:40 ('02) to 1:17:50 ('05) (same race/course). I have continued to do absolutely zero speed work this yr with my last race being in July.

As an FYI, avg weekly mileage has been 52 miles per week over the last (12) weeks with key long runs being 25, 30 and 35 miles over the last month in preparation for the JFK 50 in November (last weekend’s 35 miler was an interesting experiment). Pace has not been below 7:15 per mile or mid zone 2 (about 25 BPM below AT). Swimming & cycling 1-2x per week for recovery, in addition to 5-6 runs per week. Just some more food for thought.

Race Report is posted here if you’re curious:

http://personalbestnutrition.com/cgi-bin/forum/YaBB.cgi?board=2;action=display;num=1128290598

2

it’s no secret that the bigger your aerobic engine the faster you go. most people do not put enough into developing the aerobic engine. The tye of trainng that the overwhelming majority of triathletes, and single sport athletes, should be doing is aerobic development.

Most give 12-16 weeks for base training then head off to do intervals of some sort. In fact they really need minimally 12-16 months of aerobic development to get the most out of their potential.

Good job on your run and PB.

3

Just wanted to throw out another PR coming off exclusively low HR training. On Sunday I dropped my 1/2 Marathon PR from 1:20:40 ('02) to 1:17:50 ('05) (same race/course). I have continued to do absolutely zero speed work this yr with my last race being in July.

As an FYI, avg weekly mileage has been 52 miles per week over the last (12) weeks with key long runs being 25, 30 and 35 miles over the last month in preparation for the JFK 50 in November (last weekend’s 35 miler was an interesting experiment). Pace has not been below 7:15 per mile or mid zone 2 (about 25 BPM below AT). Swimming & cycling 1-2x per week for recovery, in addition to 5-6 runs per week. Just some more food for thought.

Race Report is posted here if you’re curious:

http://personalbestnutrition.com/cgi-bin/forum/YaBB.cgi?board=2;action=display;num=1128290598

Congrats on a great race. I rode up to the Hook yesterday as part of my high HR bike training (:-), only to find the road blocked halfway up, so I turned around. What a beautiful day for a race, although it probably felt too warm for a half marathon.

I do have some observations about your training (and your new multi-vitamin).

First of all, you happen to be a very fast runner (independent of the training that got you there), as evidenced by your PRs in th 5K races you’ve recently done. So, ~6min/mile would seem to be a pretty easy pace for someone with your speed. You also have a very large base of training over the past few years, you run about three times as much as do I (for an example), and you’re just in damned great shape.

I’m not a coach, nor an exercise physiologist, nor even a very good runner, but I still think that you are selling yourself short by not doing speed work. The fastest runners in the world do some training at race pace or better, don’t they? Heck, you’re still a young pup, so I think you can take it. They just re-surfaced the track at Monmouth Regional, too!

I looked at the study for your new multi-vitamin, and found it pretty lacking (given that i’m not a statistician, either). They only had five subjects, which means that either the test or the control group had only two subjects! The range of results showed this.

Hopefully, some people on this forum who know about this stuff will take a look at the study and comment.

Best of luck at NYC marathon!

4

Brian,

This is not news you want to spread. If everybody believed they could run/race tri’s faster simply by doing more volume then half the coaches out there would be out of business. You must do workouts like 12x800 on the track or 2x20 minutes at 85 percent max heart rate to be faster. Or not.

I had the same experience as you. I was slowly building up miles to run a marathon and entered a half at the end of a 65 mile training week. The wind was blowing like 20 mph, but we were with/cross wind and running 5:30s in the beginning. Then we hit the in-the-face windy stretch and it was up to 5:50s until the turn back to the finish. I managed a 1:13:56–minus the wind I think it would have been upwards of a minute faster–and only once in the previous three months did I run at a heart rate that was anything but aerobic, save for the occasional steep hill.

That was about 3 minutes faster than on fewer miles with more traditional tempo/interval workouts.

Nice job.

Chad

5

That’s awesome. Congrats! Pity that method wouldn’t work for me. Or rather, I should say that it didn’t work for me. I was coached by CTS for a year after putting in about 8 months on my own. This was pre-tri days. I had miserable results, barely improved.

Obviously, there are many factors in this. Your level of fitness or ‘depth of base’ (Ken mentions this), your individual responses to that stimulus, etc. For whatever reason, I don’t seem to gain much ability to go faster by training slow (although your 7:15 pace is definitely NOT slow to someone like me). I just gain the ability to go farther, and at perhaps a slightly faster pace. I guess if I did this for 10 years I might keep getting faster slowly!

6

Er, what do you expect?

12 weeks of >50 mpw’s and several long runs >25? …plus some swimming and cycling…do you think you just invented something?

7

Ken: This is my point, I strongly believe that the vast majority of triathletes, runners, etc… train too fast. That is to say that most of the workouts they do are not slow enough to gain aerobic benefits and not fast enough for race pace gains, *or *they are so ridiculously fast that there’s little or zero race specific benefit (ie 3:30 marathoner cranking out 75sec 400’s). I see it virtually every time I am running with others. This is the thing…running slow with poor, bad form will make you good at running slow with poor form. It’s a MUCH different animal to run slow while perfecting your form and then transferring that form into race day speed.

This Summer I did a fair amount of training with someone I consider an extremely fast runner (29:10 10K PR). He was doing 99% of his workouts between a 6:30-7:30 pace (a full 2 minutes /mile slower than his projected race pace). I find it very odd that athletes who are MUCH slower than he (maybe 40min 10K runners) will do their long or base workouts at roughly the same 7:30-8min/mile pace? How can an athlete who is hoping to get aerobically more efficient expect to make gains by running 30-45sec /mile slower than their GRP (Goal Race Pace)? This is where I think so many athletes make the mistake - why won’t an athlete who’s GRP is maybe 6:30’s, do their LSD runs at 8:30…because God forbid someone see them running the local trail at such an *embarrassing *pace. I’d much rather be embarrassed on those weekend runs in the park and hit PR’s when it counts.

As for adding speedwork to my own program? When I stop hitting PR’s year after year I’ll start killing myself weekly on the track. In the meantime I’ll enjoy those solo efforts smelling the flowers.

As for the MultiV - I don’t really want to get into the supplement debate as I try not to post here with the intention of doign promos for PBN. I do think their subject group could have been larger and in reality, I could care less with what the research says and don’t put my faith in something until I’ve tried it. I tried this and thought it was helpful - that’s it.

Chad- 1:13 is sick. Funny thing is that I am actually also a coach and most of the athletes when they start working with me think - that’s it?? 95% of the athletes I’m working with this yr have PR’d (one 50yr old qualified for Kona at LP 50-54)…and oh yeah, no ‘speed’ work. When I speak with athletes at your level and above I see what little speedwork they do. I believe the misunderstanding comes when athletes look towards the elites and see them running 6:30 recovery runs. The reason they’re running 6:30 recovery efforts is they’re racing a full 2 minutes faster than that! Why someone w/ a 9min/mile GRP doesn’t understand this concept I will never know.

And Reggiedog, yes, I think I totally invented this and am a pioneer as I believe I am the 1st athlete to ever run more than 50 miles /week. I will be authoring a book titled *Run 50 Miles Per Week and Get Faster. *It will be 2 pages long including the table of contents :o)

8

I think it’s great that you’ve achieved so much success with the training that you do, especially since you appear to enjoy it. I happen to like hammering my brains out! Unfortunately, each of us is a study of size 1, so we can’t effectively have a control group.

You might want to check out the information at this link: http://www.pfitzinger.com/marathontraining.shtml

Here’s a sample:

"The most effective way to improve your lactate threshold is to run at your current lactate threshold pace, or a few seconds per mile faster. This can be done either as one continuous run (tempo run) or as a long interval session at your lactate threshold pace (called cruise intervals or LT intervals).

These workouts make you run hard enough that lactate is just starting to accumulate in your blood. When you train at a lower intensity, a weaker stimulus is provided to improve your lactate threshold pace. When you train faster than current lactate threshold pace, you’ll accumulate lactate rapidly, so you won’t be training your muscles to work hard without accumulating lactate. During these workouts, the more time that you spend at your lactate threshold pace, the greater the stimulus for improvement.

Lactate threshold training should be run at close to the pace that you could currently race for one hour. For serious marathoners, this is generally 15K to 20K race pace. This should be the intensity at which lactate is just starting to accumulate in your muscles and blood. In terms of heart rate, lactate threshold typically occurs at 80 to 90 percent of maximal heart rate, or 76 to 88 percent of heart rate reserve in well-trained runners. "

Pete won the US Olympic marathon trial in 1984, and also made the Olympic marathon team in 1988, with a PR of about 2:11. If you look at his background in running, coaching, and physiology, I think you’ll be impressed.

(full disclosure: I went to college with Pete, so I’m biased)

9

Ken,

I don’t think Brian’s point was that speedwork is useless, just that most people would be better off running more miles than trying to eek out the last little bit of speed you get from any non-aerobic training.

I try to explain it to people this way: you are trying to forge a weapon to fight with, that weapon being your fitness. If you do a lot of volume then you forge a long, two handed sword. If at some point you want to put an edge on your sword then you can do just enough speedwork to make it sharp. At some point your sword will be as sharp as it can get and then all you do after that is grind away your sword.

If you do low mileage and speedwork then you are constantly putting a fine edge on your weapon. It is sharp, but about as long as a dagger. So even if you never put an edge on your longsword, it is still much more dangerous than a little dagger that is sharp.

I know this from personal experiance. I ran low miles/high intensity in college and all the way up to three years ago when I started doing more research and realized I was not getting any faster. I started in on higher volume and have increased a little each year for three years running. I keep getting faster and I still just run. I do strides when I remember and run faster at the end of runs when I am feeling better, but my pace still doesn’t go much faster than 7 minute miles. I ran 5:15 pace(my old open 5K pace) off the bike in a sprint tri this spring after my first ever 25 mph bike split. And I didn’t do intervals on the bike either. Just more volume over the winter than ever before.

Chad

10

But doesn’t all our swim/bike time at (relatively low) HRs “count” as that base training? Need we do all three areas at easy HRs? Beats me.

As for that analogy… can you give a practical example of the dagger vs. sword? IOW, is it simply that the guy who trains shorter/intensely can match the same speed but for a shorter period, while the longer/slower trainer can just go longer?

11

Nice analogy, Dirk Diggler :wink:

I’m Irish, so it’s a given that my sword may be short, but sharp.

However, I’m married, so I guess I have been grinding away at it a bit more of late :wink:

12

Ken,

I don’t think Brian’s point was that speedwork is useless, just that most people would be better off running more miles than trying to eek out the last little bit of speed you get from any non-aerobic training.

I try to explain it to people this way: you are trying to forge a weapon to fight with, that weapon being your fitness. If you do a lot of volume then you forge a long, two handed sword. If at some point you want to put an edge on your sword then you can do just enough speedwork to make it sharp. At some point your sword will be as sharp as it can get and then all you do after that is grind away your sword.

If you do low mileage and speedwork then you are constantly putting a fine edge on your weapon. It is sharp, but about as long as a dagger. So even if you never put an edge on your longsword, it is still much more dangerous than a little dagger that is sharp.

I know this from personal experiance. I ran low miles/high intensity in college and all the way up to three years ago when I started doing more research and realized I was not getting any faster. I started in on higher volume and have increased a little each year for three years running. I keep getting faster and I still just run. I do strides when I remember and run faster at the end of runs when I am feeling better, but my pace still doesn’t go much faster than 7 minute miles. I ran 5:15 pace(my old open 5K pace) off the bike in a sprint tri this spring after my first ever 25 mph bike split. And I didn’t do intervals on the bike either. Just more volume over the winter than ever before.

Chad
I agree with what you have said. My concern (not that I really care) is that people might read what Brian says and make exactly the mistakes you mention: “heck, I don’t have to work hard, I can just do lots of slow miles and I can be fast like Brian!”. At 47, I’m not sure I want to or can put in the volume that you guys produce. So, I try to build fitness by doing the kind of bike/run training that Pfitzinger recommends. I’ve seen some increase in speed compared to many years ago, despite never really running slower than 7:00/mile (unless it’s really hot, or I’m really beat). Recently trying to rehab a torn hamstring, I was told to start running at 8:30/mile. I just couldn’t do it: I thought I was going to hurt something running that slowly…

13

IOW, is it simply that the guy who trains shorter/intensely can match the same speed but for a shorter period, while the longer/slower trainer can just go longer?

Here is my best example of volume over speed. I used to run speed twice a week and my favorite was 12x400 with 20 seconds rest. My theory is that I would run my goal race pace and slowly reduce the recovery time. Unfortunately, all I ever did was become good at running 12x400. At best I could hold 75-76 seconds for the splits and I never came close for a 5K to running 15:30.

Then I went from 22 miles a week to over 40 in about 10 weeks and tried the workout again, not having done any speed in that entire time. The first time out I did 16x400 and they were all 72-74. Unfortunately the only race I had to test myself at was a really miserably hilly 4K cross country course that horrible. About 3 weeks later I did run a 4-mile race in 20:40 for about a 45 second improvement over the year before. The aerobic efficiency you gain with the volume let’s you run faster without accumulating lactic acid at the same rate.

Brian Stover, aka the desert dude described speedwork as the “1 percent solution” because you can only get so much out it before you max out. Lydiard said that 4-6 weeks of hard intervals was as much as you could do before you were working counterproductive to your base.

Chad

14

The 15K to 22K paces are aerobic paces and or not that hard unless you are racing them for ~ 1 hour. Broken into 10, 15 or 20 minutes intervals they should be moderately hard but managable.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=14740217

greg

15

The 15K to 22K paces are aerobic paces and or not that hard unless you are racing them for ~ 1 hour. Broken into 10, 15 or 20 minutes intervals they should be moderately hard but managable.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=14740217

greg
The takeaway is that training at maximal steady state velocity markedly raises your time/distance to exhaustion, yes?

16

Ken,

The link you provide further illustrates my point exactly as does your own training:

'The most effective way to improve your lactate threshold is to run at your current lactate threshold pace, or a few seconds per mile faster.’

Although my own personal physiology does not seem to benefit from this type of stimulus, I know scores of athletes do and I am NOT arguing that. My issue is not with the ‘speed/LT work’, it’s with the other 80% of many athletes’ weekly mileage. If you’re doing speedwork as described above at the prescribed intensities, which I would guess for you personally would be roughly 5:50-6:10 pace (based on your race history), even the most die-hard, speed work-demon would have this be roughly 20-25% of their total weekly volume. I am not trying to be critical of your training, but the issue I have and am referencing is the other 75-80% of weekly mileage which is spent in this ‘no man’s land’ zone. I.e. not hard enough for LT benefits and not slow enough for aerobic gains. This is exactly the point I am making. Why would you fill this other 80% with that type of training? Even those who are 110% bought into weekly speed work 52 weeks /yr would say this is counterproductive and THAT is the ‘speed work’ I am talking about (NOT the LT sessions, the other 80%).

You also mention, ‘I’m not sure I want to or can put in the volume that you guys produce.’ I have not trained over 10hrs /week since April, so I don’t see where this comes into play.

Again, I’m not trying to cause a stir or say this is the only way to train. I am simply offering an example as to what can be achieved when following a very structured plan, based on mechanics, specific HR/strength workouts without the additional stress of traditional speed work.

17

Yes. In AC’s training levels, this would be Level 4.
greg

18

Ken,

The link you provide further illustrates my point exactly as does your own training:

'The most effective way to improve your lactate threshold is to run at your current lactate threshold pace, or a few seconds per mile faster.’

Although my own personal physiology does not seem to benefit from this type of stimulus, I know scores of athletes do and I am NOT arguing that. My issue is not with the ‘speed/LT work’, it’s with the other 80% of many athletes’ weekly mileage. If you’re doing speedwork as described above at the prescribed intensities, which I would guess for you personally would be roughly 5:50-6:10 pace (based on your race history), even the most die-hard, speed work-demon would have this be roughly 20-25% of their total weekly volume. I am not trying to be critical of your training, but the issue I have and am referencing is the other 75-80% of weekly mileage which is spent in this ‘no man’s land’ zone. I.e. not hard enough for LT benefits and not slow enough for aerobic gains. This is exactly the point I am making. Why would you fill this other 80% with that type of training? Even those who are 110% bought into weekly speed work 52 weeks /yr would say this is counterproductive and THAT is the ‘speed work’ I am talking about (NOT the LT sessions, the other 80%).

You also mention, ‘I’m not sure I want to or can put in the volume that you guys produce.’ I have not trained over 10hrs /week since April, so I don’t see where this comes into play.

Again, I’m not trying to cause a stir or say this is the only way to train. I am simply offering an example as to what can be achieved when following a very structured plan, based on mechanics, specific HR/strength workouts without the additional stress of traditional speed work.

Sounds like we’re good. You seem to know me and my pace quite well, although I usually hold closer to 5:40-5:50/mile for track workouts. What kind of pace would you suggest that I do for the other 80% of my runs? I have an out-and-back, mostly flat course that I do for a total of 5 to 7 miles. My PR is just under 6:30/mile for the 7.3 miles; it finishes up a half mile hill (Sycamore up from the Grist Mill). Is this pace in no-man’s land? Running it at 7:00/mile is pretty easy; is that useful?

Perhaps my physiology is such that I benefit from speed work. That seems to be the case in the pool.

On another topic, would you recommend mixing concentrated Perpetuem and Endurolyte powder for a long distance bike concoction?

19

…‘no man’s land’ zone. I.e. not hard enough for LT benefits and not slow enough for aerobic gains.

BrianPBN, can you explain the ‘no man’s land’ zone?

Have there been any studies that show training in this zone has no LT or aerobic benefits?

Mark

20

Perhaps someone can detail where this “no man’s land” exists…it appears that most aerobic adaptations occur at all levels…

http://www.cyclingpeakssoftware.com/levels.html