Heart Rate, Daniels, Perceived Effort

Is Daniels working in Flagstaff now or no?

What heart rate monitors tell you is how fast your heart is beating. Under some conditions that also tells you how fast you are running, but under adverse conditions it does not. Lets say that under good conditions you need a 160 HR to deliver 24 liters (24,000ml) of blood per minute when running at a 5-min pace, and that 5-min pace is the running intensity that stresses the particular systen that you are trying to train (maybe VO2max or maybe threshold, depending on your ability level). Some of that blood goes to the skin for cooling. On a hot day, your body will divert more blood to the skin for cooling, and to do that and continue to send the needed amount to the running muscles to run at the same 5:00 pace (the pace that stresses the desired system), you will now have to pump maybe 26 liters of blood a minute. With your normal 150 stroke volume (used to get 24,000 ml at a heart rate of 160) you will now need a HR of 173 to deliver that amount of blood. If you let HR dictate the situation then you will have to slow down in order to send the desired amount of blood to the skin. I always want to be able to answer the question, "What is the purpose of this workout?" If it is to run at a particular HR then go by HR; if it is to run at a particular perceived exertion then go by that; and if it is to run at a particular pace then do that. Under ideal conditions all markers will coincide. When conditions are particulary adverse then it's time to change the workout, or schedule it for another day.

With all respect to jtupper, ignoring (warning signs of) perceived effort and blindly hitting any kind of calculated pace based on (past) performance, is plain foolhardy.

For most of training time, perceived effort (with or without correlation with HR) is your barometer of what's right for you that day.

Yet, in agreement with jtupper, close to target race day, you would want to be asking yourself why perceived effort and "correct" training pace were not coinciding.

In summary, "perceived effort (again, highly correlated with my HR)" will never lead you astray, but look for effort and HR to match up with "expected" training paces close to race day (and under similar circumstances, like weather, etc).

Jtupper and No Problem Here give good advice. Stick with Daniels. He knows what he's doing.

I've never read a study that proves HR training makes runners faster.

Don't make running more complicated than it has to be. Understand the basics found in Lydiard or Daniels and stick with that. If you are truly elite, you should have a coach who can worry about the finer aspects of performance. For 99.9% of the rest of the runners in the world, just stick with the basics, run on perceived effort and enjoy the sport.

Uh...guys...jtupper is Jack Daniels.

caveat emptor wrote:

Uh...guys...jtupper is Jack Daniels.

That's good to know!! Are you sure?

Anyway, I'm a Daniels fan. IMHO, HR monitors can have some utility for certain aspects of training. What drives me crazy is seeing people become slaves to those things. They turn running into a high school science lab project. To me that takes the fun out of it.

No problem here wrote:

With all respect to jtupper, ignoring (warning signs of) perceived effort and blindly hitting any kind of calculated pace based on (past) performance, is plain foolhardy.

For most of training time, perceived effort (with or without correlation with HR) is your barometer of what's right for you that day.

Yet, in agreement with jtupper, close to target race day, you would want to be asking yourself why perceived effort and "correct" training pace were not coinciding.

In summary, "perceived effort (again, highly correlated with my HR)" will never lead you astray, but look for effort and HR to match up with "expected" training paces close to race day (and under similar circumstances, like weather, etc).

Well said, NPH. Thanks for the concise reminder of an essential point.

It does seem sensible that, in the long run, heart rate, perceived effort and pace should all come together.

As far as handling the days when conditions are less than desirable for running at a planned pace, I just take it easier on that day and hit my paces when my body says it can. Kind of like jtupper says. To do otherwise just wears me out and forces me to throw in more recovery days, get off schedule, and find myself in much that same situation if I just waited until my body was able to run at the appropriate pace without undue stress. For example, last summer, I would look at my Daniels schedules, strive for that T Pace, or M Pace, and find myself with the blahs for several days and getting slower.