Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Run 47

I ran my Res 5k in 30 mins, 34 seconds. Still adjusting to the fall of the year, I got out at 6:00pm, but it felt mush later. At that hour, it was good to see other runners along my route. I "reeled in" a few, as you guys often say here. I must have been working harder than ususal...average HR was 165, which I think is on the high side for me, and I hit 172 a few times on the flats. Thanks to Bennu for steering me back towards these metrics.

2 comments:

Agricola said...

I was thinking about HR metrics on this morning's run and it got me to thinking about training and something that I read about Lance Armstrong.

There is a formula, and I'm not sure what it is, but he used to train to a certain percentage of his aerobic threshold. The mistake that many make is to train above that, and therefore move into anaerobic exercise. I want to say part of the threshold dealt with percentage of max HR. By maintaining a high percentage of max effort, but staying within the high end of his aerobic window he increased the amount of time that he could maintain that.

I think, and here's where HR came in, he trained at like 65-80% of max. Your HR monitors should have some verbiage on the HR ranges and where you get the max results for your efforts. Over 80% of max HR is putting you into the anaerobic range and you want to stay aerobic -- anaerobic is stressful and burns a different kind of fuel and forces your muscles to function differently.

Steve DiMattia said...

You're on track here. LA's coach, Chris Carmichael, writes a column for Bicycling Magazine and talks about training in terms of % of max workout. He prescribes intervals, for instance, in these terms, i.e., ride at 80% of your max for 10 mins, then pull back to 60% for 20 mins, etc. Interested folks might find some of this on bicycling.com.