How much Lactate Threshold work per week?

Thank you. It would be grand to get specific pacing and heart rate info on their workouts. For example, if we know what pace they are running their 7(?)x1k's, then we can get an idea on what their heart rates are doing the reps (and thus, where they are at relative to the 'rule-of-thumb' 4mmol point at ~91% HRmax). Knowing that info gives an idea of actual 'intensity' of what they are doing.

I appreciate all the good input from participants on this thread; the collective knowledge and insight exceeds my own.

Jack Daniels Calculator wrote:

Thank you. It would be grand to get specific pacing and heart rate info on their workouts. For example, if we know what pace they are running their 7(?)x1k's, then we can get an idea on what their heart rates are doing the reps (and thus, where they are at relative to the 'rule-of-thumb' 4mmol point at ~91% HRmax). Knowing that info gives an idea of actual 'intensity' of what they are doing.

I appreciate all the good input from participants on this thread; the collective knowledge and insight exceeds my own.

Edit: :"...we can get an idea on what their heart rates are *during* the reps..."

Jack Daniels Calculator wrote:

The problem with a race, short of a having access to a repeated park run, is that the courses and weather are typically different. A solo TT on the track is probably going to have to suffice. Ughhh.

I don't think I want to cut too much into my training for recovery from this TT, so a 5k is prob too long, and I'm apprehensive about something as short as a mile (injury, nausea, etc.), so maybe a 3200m....or howabout distance covered in 12minutes! That's the old Cooper Test, correct?

Well, we are having the best weather here in weeks. I'm planning to do this 12 minute TT later today. The closer I wait until near sunset, the longer recovery I'll get since yesterday's 4x4min workout, and the wind is to dip below 10mph at the end of the day.

If I understand the Cooper Test correctly, basically one covers as much distance as they can in a 12 minute Time Trial.

Jack Daniels Calculator wrote:

If I understand the Cooper Test correctly, basically one covers as much distance as they can in a 12 minute Time Trial.

The average pace of a 12-min Time Trial has been considered in the scientific literature as one's Velocity at VO2max.

I scanned the thread, but there is a lot here, so I didn't dissect every detail.

Since your handle invokes JD, my reading is that the his guideline is 10% of weekly mileage for a single T-pace workout. Not to exceed 10k. I also read it as volume = mileage, not time. So 40 mpw is 4x mile, 50 mpw is 5x mile, etc. That is the starting point.

Obviously, for a marathon, you might do higher % at tempo and workouts that exceed 10k. For example, his marathons include T-E-T type workouts where you separate tempo sessions with some easy running. When using that for a marathon plan, I exceeded 10% weekly guideline in a workout.

He has some 4x4 T sessions with full recovery included in the last week of taper for some plans.

But ... in general, and based on personal experience ... I would say 4 minutes is too short. I can run 4 minute T-pace sessions all day long. I think JD's T-style workouts give you a lot of bang for your buck, and typically err on the side of doing more volume or shorter rest .... as long as you are disciplined about the pace.

Regarding your goal to excel at 5k, I'm finding that over 40, I'm losing the most ground at 5k pace. Speed is good, stamina (T-pace) is good, but 5k pace is getting a lot tougher. I've adjusted my training to focus more on race-pace and near race-pace type workouts because that is my weakest link right now.

If you're loving the T-pace work, then I wouldn't be shy about adding more volume. Use recovery as a key, and I think you'll be fine.

Jack Daniels Calculator wrote:

Jack Daniels Calculator wrote:

If I understand the Cooper Test correctly, basically one covers as much distance as they can in a 12 minute Time Trial.

The average pace of a 12-min Time Trial has been considered in the scientific literature as one's Velocity at VO2max.

Pretty sure Billat (i.e. the person who coined vvo2) used a 6 min test for vvo2 pace. But you are sort of splitting hairs. You are using a lot of generalized stats which apply to populations not to you.. To be exact you really need a lab test or at least a lactate meter. But close enough is probably good enough.

I am not 60 yet but I can tell the problem as I age is recovery not doing the workouts. I can still do 30 mins at hm pace. What I can't do is go out and do the same workout a day later. I pretty much need 2 days of easy running between the had ones. Maybe I could pull off the 2 sessions in one day but I sort of doubt. it. Maybe you are recovering quicker. Only you can tell that. I would be a bit concerned that the way you do these workouts is by dropping the pace so you end up doing 4 mediocre workouts instead of 2 good ones.

Someone has already explained how the Ingebrigtsens are training, with a lot of threshold stuff.

Wisløff suggested to do 4*4 4-5 times a week to get high volume of interval. Be my guest.

What they suggest works extremely well for people who have suffered a heart attack or want bang for their bucks training three times a week. But they seem to claim that elites should be training this way. And btw 4*4 has been around for decades.

bengel wrote:

Someone has already explained how the Ingebrigtsens are training, with a lot of threshold stuff.

Wisløff suggested to do 4*4 4-5 times a week to get high volume of interval. Be my guest.

What they suggest works extremely well for people who have suffered a heart attack or want bang for their bucks training three times a week. But they seem to claim that elites should be training this way. And btw 4*4 has been around for decades.

All the variations of HIIT have been around for decades now and they test extremely well when doing low volume and short periods of time (i.e. the 8-12 weeks of a study). How that translates over longer periods of time and trained athletes is a lot tougher. And most studies don't look at combos (i.e. a bit of threshold, a bit of vo2, and a bit of anaerobic work) which is where most modern distance running training has ended up.

I would argue there is a reason why pretty much every modern training plan is 2-3 hard days and about 70-80% easy running. It isn't because people haven't tried 4 hard days or doing 50% higher intensity work. It is that most people can't handle it. If on your hard daying doing 30 mins in the morning and 30 mins at night is better than just doing 40 mins in one session isn't something we have the answer to. Or if you are better off doing this work at 30 min pace, 50 min pace, 60 min pace, or 2 hour pace.

Jack Daniels Calculator wrote:

V wrote:

I don't believe time at LT is predictive for what optimal weekly volume should be at "easy pace"

Thank you for responding, for I want to clarify the following point. My purpose is not to try and define the amount of "easy pace" volume one should be doing based on an amount of 'quality', but rather, I just demonstrated that what could be perceived as 'overkill' in 'quality sessions' actually falls well within the bounds of typical 80/20 'polarized training.

This is already starting to sounds like a JS thread so I'm going to leave it at that.

I do hope you continue to at least follow-along. I'm not JS, nor do I subscribe to his nonsense in wrecking this forum.

I`m J.S :) ...so I say I see a total of 6-8 miles per week of LT pace is enough for a 5 k/ 10 k runner .

If half marathon/ marathon is the target I recommend 6-10 miles per week of LT pace (sometimes more) .

The Wizard JS wrote:

Jack Daniels Calculator wrote:

Thank you for responding, for I want to clarify the following point. My purpose is not to try and define the amount of "easy pace" volume one should be doing based on an amount of 'quality', but rather, I just demonstrated that what could be perceived as 'overkill' in 'quality sessions' actually falls well within the bounds of typical 80/20 'polarized training.

I do hope you continue to at least follow-along. I'm not JS, nor do I subscribe to his nonsense in wrecking this forum.

I`m J.S :) ...so I say I see a total of 6-8 miles per week of LT pace is enough for a 5 k/ 10 k runner .

If half marathon/ marathon is the target I recommend 6-10 miles per week of LT pace (sometimes more) .

And what would the world class coach JS (Jerry Schumacher, of course) have to say about it?

You could read up on Klaas Lok's "Easy Interval Method" - there's a great new English translation of his Dutch book on Amazon, and he has a Facebook group. In brief, a good proportion of Dutch athletes, some world class, follow a method involving "quality running every day". This should be at an easy enough pace that you can repeat it every day - you replace steady runs with "variations in pace", so you get a LOT of practice at running faster.

A typical session might be 6x1000 at LT pace with 800m easy jogging between.

Depending on how you analyse it, it's a decent amount of LT pace each week, PLUS quite a bit of practice at 1500/3000 pace broken into brief enough reps that the effect on your heart is like LT pace, but the effect on your running stride is ...very nice.

I ran 7 laps and change in today's 12min Time Trial on the track. My Garmin says the distance covered was 1.82miles (understood not 100% accuracy). Plugging that value into Jack Daniels Calculator indicates my current VDOT is 46.5, equivalent to 21:13 5k fitness.

21:13 is about a minute slower than req'd to reach my running fitness of several years ago, per age-grade (I was under 19min 5k at age 52.). It is about 1.5mins slower than req'd to become National Class (per age-grade).

Jack Daniels Calculator wrote:

21:13 is about a minute slower than req'd to reach my running fitness of several years ago, per age-grade (I was under 19min 5k at age 52.). It is about 1.5mins slower than req'd to become National Class (per age-grade).

However, the roads are going to typically be 20-30seconds slower than the track, so my current road running fitness is ~21:30.

My average Heart Rate in the 12min TT was 163bpm, and the maxHR was 168bpm. I was maxed out, and don't think I could have done much better on this day. Here is the Heart Rate graph from the session:

https://ibb.co/HFCrLGc

Here again are the results from the 4x4 session yesterday (with average pace of the rep included this time):

Rep 1. Avg HR 149bpm (87% HRmax), MaxHR 159bpm (93% HRmax), Avg Pace 7:05;

Rep 2. Avg HR 150bpm (88% HRmax), MaxHR 155bpm (91% HRmax), Avg Pace 7:08;

Rep 3. Avg HR 151bpm (88% HRmax), MaxHR 157bpm (92% HRmax), Avg Pace 7:06;

Rep 4. Avg HR 152bpm (89% HRmax), MaxHR 160bpm (94% HRmax), Avg Pace 7:01.

The repetition average pace of 7:05 is only 4.3% slower than 6:50 indicative of 21:13 fitness.

Conclusion: Those rep paces are too fast for LT reps, if 10-20% slower than 5k pacing is the rule-of-thumb, per posts (gratefully) from others earlier in this thread.

Jack Daniels Calculator wrote:

Conclusion: Those rep paces are too fast for LT reps, if 10-20% slower than 5k pacing is the rule-of-thumb, per posts (gratefully) from others earlier in this thread.

Of note, my Garmin tells me (updated after yesterday's session) that my Lactate Threshold is 7:30/mile, 156bpm. It says my VO2max is 52, and here are predictions from its Race Predictor:

5k...20:04;

10k...42:20;

Half...1:37:21;

Marathon...3:46:34.

Jack Daniels Calculator wrote:

Of note, my Garmin tells me (updated after yesterday's session) that my Lactate Threshold is 7:30/mile, 156bpm. It says my VO2max is 52, and here are predictions from its Race Predictor:

5k...20:04;

10k...42:20;

Half...1:37:21;

Marathon...3:46:34.

Conclusion: The Lactate Threshold of 7:30/mile prediction is 11.4% slower than current 5k fitness, and more in-line with the suggestion of 10-20% slower for LT reps. The 5k prediction is quite optimistic.

Jack Daniels Calculator wrote:

Jack Daniels Calculator wrote:

Of note, my Garmin tells me (updated after yesterday's session) that my Lactate Threshold is 7:30/mile, 156bpm. It says my VO2max is 52, and here are predictions from its Race Predictor:

5k...20:04;

10k...42:20;

Half...1:37:21;

Marathon...3:46:34.

Conclusion: The Lactate Threshold of 7:30/mile prediction is 11.4% slower than current 5k fitness, and more in-line with the suggestion of 10-20% slower for LT reps. The 5k prediction is quite optimistic.

Here is something I don't quite understand. The watch is telling me my Lactate Threshold is 7:30 mile, and 156bpm (91.2% HRmax, supposedly indicating a trained individual). But if I were to run reps at 7:30 pace (based on current data, but I'll have to verify), I would not approach 156bpm. Maybe if I were to run that pace for some amount of time (20min? 40min?), the cardiac drift would eventually reach 156bpm?

Assuming a 21:30 track 5K fitness, which I approximated from your 12 minute time trial, your LT pace is around 7:20-7:30/mile. You’ve been running them too fast at 7:05/mile. Definitely consider the fact that your max HR varies based on time of day, hydration levels, fatigue, and other factors. It’s better to use HR as a guide to figure out what the effort is supposed to feel like, then just go based on effort and ditch the HR monitor. It becomes less of a tool and more of a crutch at times. The same thing goes for the fitness data from your gps watch — use it as a guide but understand that machines are stupid and humans have to be the ones to interpret what the data actually means. Don’t take the data at face value.

Improving your threshold is one component of a successful program. You’ll improve it by running at LT, as well as paces faster (~15 seconds/mile) and slower (30 or 40 seconds/mile) than LT.

Shorter repetitions of 2-4 minutes are good for the paces slightly faster than LT. Reps of 4 minutes or longer for LT pace are fine or you can do a continuous tempo of 20-25 minutes (or longer if you’re really fit). It really depends on your fitness level and how it fits into your overall training plan. For paces slower than LT, you might do a continuous tempo run of 30-40 minutes.

There are different reasons for doing each of them. Typically you want to do a lot of work at the paces that more closely mimic the speeds you’d be racing at (i.e slow tempo for marathon training and LT/slightly faster than LT for track racing)

Update:

My maximum heart rate in the all-out 12-min Time Trial 2 days ago was 168bpm. If this is my actual HRmax (rather than previously assumed 171bpm), then I was running previous 4x4 sessions even less conservatively than I thought. Since my objective going forward is to increase the volume of 'Lactate Threshold running Intensity' for base-building purposes, using repetitions scientifically evaluated in the literature, if possible, under the protocol of 'The Norwegian Method' (i.e., the 4-or-more-x4min w/3min recovery, conducted somewhere in the range of 85-95% HRmax), then I will error on the side-of-caution and assume my Heart Rate Maximum (HRmax) is 168bpm, going forward.

I ran a 7x4min (with 3min recovery) workout at the track today. (Some of the reps were in the Skechers GoMeb Speed 6, and some were in the Nike AlphaFly.). I set the Garmin watch heart rate alerts to the following for the repetitions:

Low Alert...142bpm (84.5% HRmax);

High Alert...145bpm (86.3% HRmax).

Here are the results from the session:

SUMMARY. Avg HR 142bpm (85% HRmax), MaxHR 150bpm (89% HRmax), Avg Pace 7:41.

Rep 1. Avg HR 142bpm (85% HRmax), MaxHR 148bpm (89% HRmax), Avg Pace 7:37;

Rep 2. Avg HR 142bpm (85% HRmax), MaxHR 146bpm (87% HRmax), Avg Pace 7:47;

Rep 3. Avg HR 143bpm (85% HRmax), MaxHR 148bpm (89% HRmax), Avg Pace 7:43;

Rep 4. Avg HR 141bpm (84% HRmax), MaxHR 146bpm (87% HRmax), Avg Pace 7:44.

Rep 5. Avg HR 143bpm (85% HRmax), MaxHR 148bpm (89% HRmax), Avg Pace 7:38;

Rep 6. Avg HR 142bpm (85% HRmax), MaxHR 150bpm (89% HRmax), Avg Pace 7:39;

Rep 7. Avg HR 144bpm (86% HRmax), MaxHR 149bpm (89% HRmax), Avg Pace 7:42.

Note, the average pace of the reps (for an individual with current 21:13 5k fitness) turned out to come in between Half-Marathon and Marathon Pace, and closer to the latter than the former.