Difference between anaerobic and aerobic threshold

Too fast.

I agree!

Daniel's easy pace is the pace you should be able to run comfortably once warmed up and not on a recovery day. I find in my progression runs, especially during base, that I hit Daniel's suggested pace after about 20 minutes in and finishing slightly faster towards the end of the run with the same amount of comfort. The recovery days though I got a lot slow than Daniel's easy pace.

skeptic_ wrote:

I'd say that making physiological based training zones has proven almost worthless for effective training.

I think heart-rate based training can be very effective.

The bulk of ex phys guys the last 50 years have mostly advocated endless VO2-max intervals.

I can't think of anyone that has advocated "endless VO2-max intervals", can you?

Frankly I've never heard of any successful training method that was first proposed by physiologists.

Would you consider Dr. Woldemar Gerschler and cardiologist Dr. Herbert Reindel to be a couple of those "physiologists"?

rekrunner wrote:

Here are some common estimates of aerobic threshold:

- marathon pace

- MaxHR - 45 beats

- 2 mmol

Here are some common estimates of anaerobic threshold:

- 1 hour race pace

- MaxHR - 25 beats

- 4 mmol

According to Hadd, "I have taken enough lactate measurements and had people wear HRM’s in marathons... that I was able to tell him that..."

...

"As a general guide, and in my experience, this is what I have found works best. Marathon HR will be approx 15-20 beats lower than HRmax (no better). And aerobic conditioning HR needs to be another 30 bpm below THAT (and hence ~50bpm below HRmax)"

Conference attendee wrote:

According to Hadley, there is about 4.5% difference in pace between anaerobic and aerobic threshold. He says that this will vary some based on natural predisposition (such items as muscle fiber make-up and bone structure) and that the range is from 3.5% to 5.5% (cover 99% of runners) with 4.5% being the most common (i.e norm).

I can understand muscle fiber makeup, as slow-twitch fibers are primarily fat burners (w/o lactate product). But what is he referring to regarding "bone structure"?

Conference attendee wrote:

While Aerobic threshold he defines as the maximum pace you can hold for 2:00-2:30 in an all out effort.

Mark Hadley says that, too?

Bam. Love it when my information is reinforced by elite guys like Hadley.

Good confirmation.

SlowFatMaster wrote:

Are you saying Daniels has easy pace too fast or too slow?

Way too fast. 80% max hr is not sustainable day in and day out if you're doing workouts. Not unless you run yourself into the ground.

His tempo hr ranges are also way, way too high, imo.

max219 wrote:

Daniel's easy pace is the pace you should be able to run comfortably once warmed up and not on a recovery day. I find in my progression runs, especially during base, that I hit Daniel's suggested pace after about 20 minutes in and finishing slightly faster towards the end of the run with the same amount of comfort. The recovery days though I got a lot slow than Daniel's easy pace.

I am a big fan of Daniels and his book. BUT...

...Just the fact that Daniels' easy pace recommendations CHANGED by about 15 seconds per mile from version 1 to version 2 of the Daniels Running Formula tells me not to put too terribly much faith in its precision.

After all, tons of research was supposedly done prior to the printing of version 1. You'd think the E pace was scientifically based. Then, version 2 slowed the E paces significantly, and I have yet to find an explanation as to why. I did not find much new research cited in the second book, and definitely nothing that would explain the change.

Who knows... maybe version 3 will slow them by another 15 seconds, and anybody faithfully following version 1 would have been doing their E runs 30 seconds too fast.

Maybe I wasn't clear, but I always see these things as two steps. Step 1 is defining the zones based on some general theory, and Step 2 is adapting them to the individual, considering his experience, goals, strengths and weaknesses.Given that there is no "one size fits all" general theory, I would manage criticisms about paces being too fast in step 2, as a function of the athlete.Using these pseudo-physiological thresholds (and some unnamed ones), I define a recovery zone, endurance zone, stamina zone, speed zone, and sprint zone. Each zone accomplishes a different objective."The bulk of ex phys guys the last 50 years have mostly advocated endless VO2-max intervals." I would disagree with "bulk" and "endless" and "50 years", but putting aside that, your example of "ineffective training" does not reflect anaerobic or aerobic thresholds, but just VO2max. Once you combine these other concepts, you have a model that allows you to justify easy paces, tempo paces, speed paces, and faster paces. This transforms your worthless "endless VO2max interval training" example, into a much more effective, multi-effort training, incorporating endurance, stamina, and speed."Jack Daniels advocates running easy runs at almost 80% heart rate". Jack Daniels E-pace is 67% VDOT. If you think that's too fast, keep in mind that most of his readers usually run easy pace faster, when self-trained. For example, "abort plan" just told us he was running most of 90 miles at 7:00 pace. Jack Daniels E-pace is currently 7:40 for him, and Daniels would have him running some 60 miles at E-Pace in this aerobic phase.

The point with bringing up Daniels' easy pace was to show that a cleverly chosen pace from physiological criteria hasn't proved any better than other easy paces. It's not whether an individual thinks they're good or not.

If we agree that easy runs should be included in a training schedule, we could have a monkey pick a pace between some "slow easy" and "fast easy" limits. As JD had to adjust his easy pace by 15 seconds, the odds are good that the monkey would have done better than JD.

I also like heart rate training. But the "zones" I use are based on studying my training and racing logs, and the zones change with the status of my training. The zones you find from physiologists are all over the place. I could always find some that fit me, but most of them don't.

There's even a study out there that concludes that making training zones from HRmax is too unreliable to be of much value. Now, that's a study I believe in.

But you haven't really shown that E-pace is bad, or any other easy pace is better.

We weren't talking about proving E-pace better, but choosing between the two extremes "effective" and "worthless".

I agree with you that an over-emphasis on 1 pace is worthless.

But methods that define 4 (or more) paces have proven effective, particularly when you customize these paces to the individual.