Can run-walking with easy-but-anaerobic-speed run portions improve aerobic capacity?

How do you even know what your max HR is? Have you run until the point of puking or fainting yet?

Until you put on a monitor and have a friend watch with smelling salts, I don’t know how you could truly know your mHR.

Do you weigh a lot? It could be that your 90 is really 75-80 and that you hit true 90 during your 8:45” pace 5k

calfshrug wrote:

How do you even know what your max HR is? Have you run until the point of puking or fainting yet?

Until you put on a monitor and have a friend watch with smelling salts, I don’t know how you could truly know your mHR.

Do you weigh a lot? It could be that your 90 is really 75-80 and that you hit true 90 during your 8:45” pace 5k

Lightweight at 6’1”, 140 lbs.

I’ve run all out on track for many minutes quite a few times and have never been able to make it go over 190.

I’m in my forties, so there’s probably not too much room to go higher. Also if I jog at 10’15”/170 for an hour, my legs do feel tired like a threshold run should feel, but if I run-walk for an hour in the 140-160 regime, I can’t tell next day if I ran the previous day or not. My 8’45” 5K pace was at 175-180 for the second and third miles.

hobbyjoggist wrote:

Problem: My noob aerobic capacity is poor and at a plateau despite many months of regular running

That doesn't make sense.

In any case, I’m open to the possibility that my max is say like 200 or something, but I still have these two problems that I want to fix and everything I’ve read suggests it’s poor aerobic capacity:

1) I can run-walk 10K at an average pace faster than

9’30” (counting the walk portions) but would likely burn out doing it continuously at that pace.

2) I can jog for an hour nose-breathing but I seem incapable of jogging easy for even a mile no matter how much I slow down unless I put both feet down.

wow man running is so complicated

hobbyjoggist wrote:

In any case, I’m open to the possibility that my max is say like 200 or something, but I still have these two problems that I want to fix and everything I’ve read suggests it’s poor aerobic capacity:

1) I can run-walk 10K at an average pace faster than

9’30” (counting the walk portions) but would likely burn out doing it continuously at that pace.

2) I can jog for an hour nose-breathing but I seem incapable of jogging easy for even a mile no matter how much I slow down unless I put both feet down.

It's not your aerobic capacity that's weak. It's your efficiency.

You've been reading mainstream literature that doesn't explain this problem.

The solution is to train more at every pace. You gradually improve the abilty to run at each pace for much longer.

For example, a beginner might only manage to run 200 meters in 40 seconds, but eventually they can hold that pace for 10km.

Thanks, is there literature I can read, especially training plans, for addressing my two problems? Most of the scientific as well as pop literature I come across seems tailored for elite or sub-elite runners and assumes that the runner can already run continuously at a low heart rate. The “run easy” advice conveniently leaves out details of how to tell your heart to not beat so fast. I also don’t anyone else who can run-walk 10K faster than they can run it.

I used to train at different paces on different days and will soon go back to it. Right now I’m recovering from mild PF, so I figured I’ll use a few weeks to give base building another try by increasing mileage but doing them easy with run-walking.

In case anyone else is in my position, I’ll maintain weekly or fortnightly updates on my progress (or lack thereof). For the last two weeks, I’ve been run walking in the 140-160 HR range with the following stats:

Mileage: 30-40 mpw

Average HR: 148-151

Average pace: 10’36” (best) to 11’15”

Run percentage by time: 60-64% typical, 68% best;

Run portion pace: 8’45” typical, 10’ in the beginning, 7’30” towards the end;

160+ -> 140- HR drop time: ~50 secs, ~90m walking.

Goal is to increase run percentage to 100% **at any running pace**.