Okay, let me continue with discussion of HR graphs for different events, because there is a lot of worthwhile information we can gain about our current condition, and use this info for training purposes.
I had remarked earlier to Antonio (perhaps to his surprise) that once the training pace went above (faster than) approx 15km/10mile even HM pace, it becomes more difficult to use the HRM to control the training intensity.
As with the earlier two graphs, we can see that I can give this runner a workout at M_pace (or more precisely: M_effort) by getting her to run in the HRzone of 175-179. Irrespective of the pace at that HR, I am sure that she is doing the workout I want her to do.
(once again, refer to M_graph)
http://www.letsrun.com/2008/images/Hadd_M_Graph.jpg
Imagine I chose to do as some would advise, and get her to train at Mpace. I would know by her recent performance in a cool northern climate that she averaged 6:07m/m for the race. However we are now back in Med climate again and the temp is not 8degC and cloudy as on race day, but it is now 25degC and the sun is baking down. Do anyone really think it would be sensible to get her to run 10 miles at “Mpace” (6:07m/m) in the much hotter Med summer weather?
I don’t. I believe that Mpace was Mpace partly because of the environmental conditions on race day. If instead of running in 8degC in N. Europe, she had run a marathon in Napoli in S. Italy in 25degC, then she would most definitely NOT have averaged 6:07m/m. So “Mpace” only works, if current conditions match those that were true when the performance was run.
So, since we are training in 25degC, it would be suicidal to run at a “race pace” that is only applicable/valid to cool N. Europe climes.
Imagine you set a PR in Chicago in October (or NYC in November) and you are now training again in Texas in August, do you still think “Mpace” is a valid pace to train at?
I don’t. So, I don’t set her off for a 10-mile training run at 6:07m/m, but at M_effort: of 175-179 HR, the HR zone she maintained in her last marathon.
In this training run in Napoli, I do not care what the pace is per mile! (Read that sentence again)
If she is training in the correct Marathon_HRzone, then the effort for the training is perfect. We know from experience that under very hot conditions (eg: 25degC or hotter) that the pace at this HRzone can be ~6:19m/m instead of the 6:07m/m we saw in 8degC.
The difference between 6:19m/m and 6:07m/m does not matter (as explained in this example). The difference in running pace at this HR is due almost entirely to the difference in ambient conditions (temp + humidity).
We pay absolutely no attention to the running pace under such adverse conditions. It will be what it will be.
What we do instead is look for improvement over time under similar conditions. So if one month ago we saw 6:19m/m average pace at this HRzone at 25degC, and today we see the athlete running just as comfortably at 6:15m/m at the same HRzone under the same conditions, then (all else being equal) we can feel confident that the athlete’s physical condition has improved and that, if we were to return and race under 8degC conditions, we might confidently expect a better marathon performance than 6:07m/m.
(We can corroborate this by checking the athlete’s lactate response over time in this HR zone).
So, training at 175-179 HR will improve this athlete’s LT (as defined above). Indeed she might train even more mileage at 170-174 HR for a greater effect.
To move the athlete’s LTP (again, defined above, and one of these days I’ll get into why I use a double-threshold concept), we can have her train in the HRzone 180-184.
(once again refer to 15k graph).
http://www.letsrun.com/2008/images/Hadd_15k_Graph.jpg
For the exact same reason just given for training at M_effort instead of M_pace, we would have the athlete train at 15k_effort (180-184 HR) and not at “15k_pace”; the particular pace she achieved in that race. A large part of the pace in the race was due to the ambient conditions on race day. The conditions on a training day two months later may differ and to account for this we make sure the athlete maintains the same effort and not the same pace (which may require greater effort due to adverse conditions).
To get back to where I was, for both of these efforts (LT and LTP) I can use HR to guide the training intensity. This has a number of benefits, among them:
1. I can be sure the athlete is training exactly as I wish her to, irrespective of environmental conditions
2. The athlete does not have to worry about pace, and mile splits, and thus run over known routes to set times
3. The athlete does not have to run on a known route, but can run point-to-point in any direction that suits her (and be picked up by car on arrival) and thus always keep the training fresh and interesting
4. This stops the athlete becoming “competitive” with herself and comparing her times over a known route to previous efforts. Thus we avoid her "racing the training".
However, as I remarked to Antonio, at training intensities above (faster than) 15k pace, it becomes virtually impossible (or at least very difficult) to control, or set, the training intensity by HR, simply because at running paces above LTP, the HR is going to rise continuously over the course of the run. Given that, what possible HRzone can I give the athlete?
Let’s look at this graph:
http://www.letsrun.com/2008/images/Hadd_10k_Graph.jpg
This is a graph of a 10k road race by the same runner from the first two graphs (as explained earlier, it is simpler to see the effects of different performances on a single individual).
As we can see, the HR rises steadily from the 1 km mark till the 10 km mark. The km/mile splits (and I’ll look these out and post them up) are consistent and steady, as would be expected from an experienced athlete.
Now some of you looking at this graph might think that the HR rise is not so drastic as I am making out, and that surely the HR stays quite steady for a long way. You might even think that some of this info can be used to guide training.
But the horizontal scale of the graph is confusing the issue somewhat. When I created these three graphs (10k, 15k, and M), I used the same format for each; the same 110-200 HR scale and the same horizontal scale. But of course the events are much different in length.
Now let me put the three races on a single graph, and you will better appreciate the difference in the HR response under the three different race conditions.
Consider this graph with all races to scale:
http://www.letsrun.com/2008/images/Hadd_Combined.jpg
Here the black line is the HR during the Marathon performance; the blue line is the HR during the 15k performance (note the HR peaks in the two difficult hills early in the race), and the red line is the HR during the 10k performance.
The distinctions between the three HR responses are much more dramatic, and no way can one be mistaken for either of the others.
If I was standing trackside as my athlete trained, and was hearing the HR get called out to me as she passed by every 400m, there is no way I could mistake the difference between (eg) a “marathon effort” and a “10k effort”. I don’t even need to know the running paces involved, I can tell by the HR values what level of effort the runner is putting in.
(The Green Line in this graph is this runner’s HR_LT, and the Red Dotted Line [horizontal] is this Runner’s HR_LTP)
More to come…