andyg555 wrote:
Ok, so here’s an update on my latest run today. I had a go at slowly reaching my target zone and keeping my HR there until the end of the run. Here is how I did...
Run: 5 miles “steady”
Target HR zone: 143-155 bpm
0 mins - 75 bpm
0-3 mins - 4.5 mph, 115 bpm
3-7 mins - 5 mph, 123 bpm
7-10 mins - 5.5 mph, 135 bpm
10-15 mins - 5.8 mph, 140 bpm
17 mins - 6 mph, 143 bpm
17-38 mins - 6 mph, 143-155 bpm (target zone)
39 mins - 6 mph, 156 bpm (above target)
39-52 mins - 6 mph, 155-159 bpm
So as you can see, I worked up to 6 mph, stayed in my target HR zone for 21 minutes, and drifted above my target HR zone for the final 13 minutes by 0-4 bpm.
Did I do this right? Should I have picked a lower speed? Any and all advice appreciated. Thanks!
That looks pretty good. The word "steady," used in training logs, falls within a continuum of impressionistic words: recovery, easy, steady, tempo, hard. Also the word "progression."
What you did wasn't recovery, which denotes a very easy, deliberately easy, jog taken the day after a harder run which has the training purpose of remaining gently aerobic and taking nothing out of you, simply helping you recover from the previous day and then setting you up for the following day's harder run.
Easy is a bread and butter run and suggests that at no point are you pushing it, just putting in the miles.
Steady, in that continuum, suggests a somewhat harder run, where most or some--at least half--of the run is done at a sub-threshold pace. HR is elevated above easy, but effort is in no way "breathless," or even pushing at threshold. I'd say that steady for me is in the 82-85% of max HR range, with 85% being marathon pace. Maybe even up to 87%. Some people call this pace long tempo pace or 20-mile pace (which would be faster than 26 mile pace, which would be, duh, marathon pace. 20 mile pace would be the pace you could race 20 miles at.)
It seems as though you got into that range during that 17-38 minute block. You worked towards and then held something like steady pace.
I like progression runs of this sort--and that's what one might also call your run: a progression run. Not a hard progression run, although in that last 13 minutes, you WERE running at something closer to half-marathon pace, which is a kind of tempo pace.
How do you feel? If your legs are slightly sore the following day, that's ok, but it meant that you ran a bit faster than steady pace, especially in that last 13 minutes. Take a recovery day. If it takes two days for that soreness to go away, you ran to hard in that last 13 minutes.
HR training can begin to help you tune in more precisely to these energy levels; these increasing degress of "push."