Thursday, June 25, 2009

142, 125, 178....

These numbers seem to become MORE and MORE important in my workouts lately. I've been faithfully trying to stick to more of a heartrate based training and so far, I am more confused than ever. Not that this will interest MOST of you reading this but I still have to vent. This is just so overwhelming.

For example, a run will state... Long Aerobic Run 65 min. This means, according to Ryan Hall..hehehe, that my heart rate should be about70% of my MAX. That for me is around 130. Somedays that means that I run 8 min miles, however today, it meant I run 10 MIN MILES at best!
Example number two. Tempo runs should be intense. like 85-90% of your MAX. Hard stuff. For me that's the high 160's. Last week it took me running at almost 10miles an hour to hit that and today I was hitting it at only 8 miles an hour. Hello? So I have two questions in my mind...

1. Am I not improving?
2. Did I work so hard on previous workouts my recovery hasn't be adequate?

Then today, spending the afternoon at Wasatch Running in Sandy,UT I talked to an experienced runner and coach who said he checks his heartrate the night before a big run and if it isn't REALLY low, then he postpones his hard workouts another day. Wow. That kind of makes sense huh? HE says heartrate is the ultimate training tool...

So, with that said. I guess I will keep trying to figure it out, though I am such a novice with this stuff...

So if any of you want to shed some light on this complex training method feel free.:)

Bored yet? hahaha

3 comments:

Matt and Jessie said...

Yeah, so I was watching some of those training clips online last night about the heart rate and trying to figure it out. I was trying to figure out a marathon training schedule so I looked at the one that he does. There is a ton of calculating that goes into all this!! I decided that I would start messing with it and trying to figure it out, but that for the time being I would just print a schedule off on Runnersworld. I hope that by the time I am finished with the Top of Utah, I will have some of this heart rate stuff figured out!!! So what I want to know is, what does that coach guy do that next day then? Does he cross train or do less miles at a slower pace? I am sure he does not just take the day off completely!! I am confused about all this!!

Red Head Family said...

It's way over my heard. I'm happy I can just run a 5k and not stop. I am going to run another in September in Rexburg.

The Flynn's said...

Congrats on your running. Sounds like you're gettin' it done, as we say in the south.
I saw the post and thought I might comment on your HR changes. A couple of questions:
1. are your runs done on the same course, ie hills vs flats. Obviously, that would change your heart rate and speed.
2. timing of your workouts. If you're working out in the evening on day 1, and morning day 2 you won't have enough time to recover.
3. along the same lines as 2, time b/w sessions could cause moderate dehydration, you lose fluids faster than your body accepts them. So if you don't have enough time b/w workouts, you will go into day 2 dehydrated causing a phenomenon called cardiac drift sooner in the workout (increased HR over the workout session as fluid loss occurs).
4. Some athletes lose fluids faster at particular HR so must keep pace/HR below that point to avoid "blowing up".
Hope that helps.

this is Scott by the way