Hadd Training - 2400m; weird results

If your max is 194 and you're only doing 8min/mile at 180bpm, yet you can do 1km repeats in 3:4x - which is below 6min/mile pace then something doesn't stack up.

At a guess your max is higher than you think it is - how did you test it?

How confident are you that your hrm was working properly? Could you have been very dehydrated?

Totally confident in HRM and that i was not dehydrated (also took on fluid + electrolytes in each 90 second breather).

As to HRmax, did a Coconi test to exhaustion on a treadmill a while back. I wear HRM often when doing intervals outside and have never seen it hit the 190s so reasonably confident that the number is accurate. It being wrong still would not address the fact that 150-170 seems ot be the same pace for me though..?

As you say, something doesn't add up, but I can't work out what. Distances were all on same track, HRR was 47+/- this morning so unlikely that was esp tired or overtrained and conditions did not change significantly.

Anyway, thanks for the replies....any more ideas..?

Or training solutions?!

Was this on a track? I can't see how you ran the same exact time for 3 different HR levels. Something has to wrong, what it is I have no idea.

Are you trying to get to the HR level immediately? Usually it should take you about 400m to get to the HR level. Were you getting slower towards the end of each 2400m repeat?

Is this workout online anywhere?

I'm just getting into the Hadd Method because my PR's weren't correlating well, and needed to limit my effort as I return from a surgery I had in September.

To me, this all looks possible if you swim/bike are not complying with the Hadd philosophies as well. If you are doing a lot of spin intervals on the bike and shorter/faster drills in the pool, your squeezing the tube from the middle. That's why you can perform relatively well in those 5x1000. I think the Hadd system probably can work at 20-30 mpw if the same philosophy is applied to the other disciplines, but you'll need to make some adjustments.

With your HRMax, had would place your heart rates in a similar locations to Joe. However if you attempt to hit a marathon at 175-177 at the end of an iron man, It's be suicide because you can't replace your glycogen quickly enough at the effort after the fatigue of the beginning of the race sat in. You'll likely need to plan on racing around 160.

Additionally, I'm not sure the HRs correlate linearly in the other disciplines. In swimming, the temperature of the water is going effect your resting HR and so you'll have to adjust your training efforts relative to that baseline. And in cycling, training for 1 hour plus at a steady 145-150 bpms is a very hard day (I'm a CAT3 cyclist and only average that high in 40k time trials). Sure in cycling you'll likely hit some high peaks in HR, but a steady grind at 145-150 is a hell of an effort.

Because Hadd's system is based on cellular adaptations, it takes time, and patience. You are in a huge aerobic debt and need to put in lots of hours squeezing the tube from the bottom, and need to do so in all of your disciplines.

toss out the HR monitor. If you are going to run 20-30mpw I would not goof off by jogging...

You are going to crash in the marathon if you try this HR method.

You should scrap triathlon plans and learn to run first. Take a couple years, become a 5k-1/2 marathon racer...then race a marathon. Then convert to triathlon. Swimming is the hard sport to learn, running is the most important segment to excel at for overall potential of success. Biking is the easy part, manyt decent athletes/runners can pick up the bike in much less than a year.

Ditch the jogging, become a racer first.

feliz navikah

Another: Test was done on a track, I did take 400-600m to get up to pace but still noticed that I was slowing up a bit towards the end of each set to stop HR rising.

Afraid the workout is not online, but I wasn'

You look exactly like the kind of runner Hadd was talking about. The increasing HR at 8:23 pace indicates you have little endurance. Your heart and your ST fibers are out of shape. Your 5 x 1 km workout suggests you're capable of running pretty quick once you fully develop your aerobic system with of lot of slower runs. If you are going to run just 20 mile/week for an IM, do one long run and one 5 x 1 k per week. 40 mile/wk, add some in between stuff.

This could happen to me if it was very hot. What was the temp like? What were you wearing?

Also, not sure electrolyte replacement is needed during the 90 seconds recovery. Just wait until the workout is over.

Looks like this post got truncated.

It should have said something like:

Another: Test was done on a track, I did take 400-600m to get up to pace but still noticed that I was slowing up a bit towards the end of each set to stop HR rising.

Afraid the workout is not online, but I wasn't wearing anything to measure pace or distance so it doesn't show much more than flat HRs for each set.

InWyo: HRs are higher for me when running than either of the other disciplines. I can put out avg 150bpm for 3 hours plus on a bike but average only 30km/h average at that effort.

mplatt: your recommendations pretty much reflect what i have been doing and it's not got me to where I think I should be able to get. Currently i am around 13hrs for an IM and just over 3:30 for a marathon - I reckon I should be able to get down to sub 12 and sub 3:15 respectively if I increase my aerobic base, which everyone seems to agree is v weak.

jbdjcb: good suggestions, thanks!

From200mTo8k: wearing vest, shorts, socks, trainers, HRM.

Agree that electrolytes replacement prob not essential over 90min, but it's an important habit to get into over here. Conditions ~32C, 65%+ humidity, so one possibility is a very severe degree of HR drift in the heat combined with everyone's agreement on my aerobic (lack of) ability!

i think I just had a weird day, have run 13km through jungle here in 80 mins with lower avg HR in tougher conditions, hence confusion.

Anyway, conclusion seems to be that i'm aerobically poor and that Hadd is a good way to start fixing that, so that's what i'll do!

Thanks all and merry christmas!

First of all, I guess by Hadd method, you mean Hadd's Phase 1. Hadd had several other phases, with lots of intensity, but the Phase 1 was the famous one where he emphasized establishing a strong aerobic base.

I don't think 20-30 mpw will be enough to establish this kind of base. In the example he gave, 50 mpw was just the starting point, leading to 80 mpw, then to 110+ mpw, including two 90 minute runs and one 2 hour run per week. I don't see your aerobic condition improving the way you want on only "maybe up to 40mpw", trying to keep your runs at least 1 hour. I don't suggest duplicating 110+ mpw, but I think 50 mpw is better, and 80 mpw is better still. If it's a question of time, maybe you should partially sacrifice your other training and get up to 70-75 mpw, at least for a couple months. (I always thought running took less time than swimming or cycling training). Or at the very least, at least two long runs per week (e.g. one 90 min and one 2 hours), and then a couple 45 minute runs. This Hadd Phase 1 is supposed to be a one time thing, so this wouldn't be a permanent situation.

With the kind of heat and humidity you describe, I wonder if your heartrate isn't going up, simply because your heart has to pump more blood to your skin to keep you cool, as you go through the different tests. This is why you aren't getting faster at the higher heartrates, even though you are capable of 3:45/km pace. Can you do this test sometime or somewhere when it's cooler? Maybe in the morning, or in an indoor track or on a treadmill where you have air conditioning? If not, maybe it's better to do a shorter test (1200m or 1600m), with much longer recoveries simply to cool off. Or do 3 tests at 130, 150, and 170 bpm. Another factor may be, if you are only running 20-30 mpw, this 5x2400m test is a significant percentage of your weekly mileage (up to 10 miles), and you may also be suffering from that, towards the end of the workout. When I did these tests, my times dropped by about 40 seconds (+/-) for each 10 beats, and more than 2:30 for the whole range. Even with a poor aerobic base, I think something else is leading to your poor range.

But with that heat and humidity, off of only 20-30 mpw, I think there is no way to draw any conclusions from these tests.

If you can't do these tests in anything but heat and humidity, I would abandon the HRM for training, and abandon these tests. Simply figure out your marathon pace, and half-marathon pace, and control your training by pace. Eventually, if you think it's time to move up, re-evaluate your paces, plus your 15K (or 10 mile) pace, as your new pace range.

Don't retest HRmax or LT -- they seem close enough and reasonable, and perfectly adequate for your purpose.

But if you want to do Ironman triathlons, why did you pick Hadd? Maybe a better model would be to research Mark Allen, and how he moved from the Olympic distance to the Ironman distance, working with the Maffetone system. It's very "Hadd-like", but maybe there is something that is more applicable to tri-athletes. He was a natural at the triathlon, but in the beginning, he struggled to complete the Ironman distance.