What does lactate threshold feel like?

Most of what you wrote is inaccurate / outdated / simplistic.

You have to read real some science published after 1985.

All of these terms bandied about were an an attempt to quantify something which is rather nuanced to nebulous at best.

There's really not much novel about that. That's essentially what Daniels writes in his book and has been saying for decades.

Smoove wrote:

There's really not much novel about that. That's essentially what Daniels writes in his book and has been saying for decades.

Correct. Keith Livingstone was coached by Barry Magee who was coached by Lydiard. These aren't new principles. They are tried and true training methodologies, and quantified by HR training in this book. If you are having trouble determining how threshold "pace" feels, why not try HR?

What's incorrect?

You said:

Lactacte Threshold HR = RestHR + .85 x (MaxHR - RestHR)

For me, this is:

45 + .85 x (195 - 45) = 172.5

But this is higher than my 10k race pace, at least under heavy training. This wasn't a workout effort -- it was all out.

I read Healthy Intelligent Training. It was interesting and had some useful ideas, but its discussion of the scientific basis of training is no longer up to date, and Livingston doesn't have enough of a scientific background to update it. That's not a huge deal. There's a difference between what works and what science can prove. Then again, the Livingstone HR formula for me tells me a tempo HR that I only hit momentarily in races.

What? That is all wrong. Comfortably hard is not someone's marathon pace. It's tempo pace, and a pace that a runner can run for 1 hour, so basically it is half marathon pace. Elite runners will race at tempo pace for an entire half marathon.

82-88 percent Vo2max, and comfortably hard. Also, threshold, steady state and tempo are the same. STEADY STATE MEANS THAT YOUR LACTATE GENERATION IS NEITHER HIGH OR LOW. TEMPO IS A STEADY STATE RUN, and YOU ARE TEACHING YOU BODY HOW TO REMOVE LACTATE WHILE RUNNING FAST.

I also find it funny that Smoove says that the phrase "comfortably hard" is vague, when he is a devout Daniels follower. That is the term that Daniels uses to describe the pace in his video and all throughout his book.

Proof:

Not a bad respons. Neither is the pushup-one. It shouldn't feel harder than the 20/30 pushups when youre finished.

I think your rest is a bit too long though, Actual Coach. Personally I have a lactate meter and several friends use them too. Treshold training really isn't hard, true treshold belove 3.5 lactate. Its widely used by several great runners, especially in the nordic nations. The Ingebrigtsens religiously use it on all interval workouts. Same did Marius Bakken, and Karoline Grovdal does too.

What surprises me is why do I never see american elite runners use this? They can afford it...

If VO2Max and Lactate Threshold were never “discovered” how would you train? Would elite runners be slower today? Why or Why not?

It’s something we can measure so let’s make it important......

Alan

Scorpion,

We're disagreeing over semantics. The term "tempo" has been loosely associated with many different paces. I think a better term for what you are trying to describe is the lactate threshold or the MLSS. When I say "tempo" I am referring to a pace that is high-end aerobic, very close to marathon pace and which feels "comfortably hard" or leaves you feeling "pleasantly tired" after a run. There is much value to this perceived effort level as far as aerobic development is concerned.

The "deflection point" hypothesis for determining LT (ie, the Conconi Test) has been disproven. It sometimes produces a rough approximation, but the relationship between blood lactate and heart rate is unreliable and many people do not have a deflection point.

Plug current mile race pace into a VDOT table, and you'll get approximately 1 min slower per mile for tempo pace. I work with HS kids and prefer to go conservative and have them go 1:10 to 1:20 slower than mile race pace for mile and 2k repeats. This way they are sure to stay under 90% MHR and keep it an actual tempo run. If you let them go over 90% MHR, then it becomes an interval workout and you lose the benefits of tempo running.

I'm fully aware that it's one of several ways that Daniels describes LT pace, but it is a subjective definition that, on its own, gives very little specific guidance on how you should feel.

Are you actually running 10ks under 172.5 BPM? Am I reading that correctly?

I find if I ditch the watch comfortably hard as an effort is a lot easier to find. If I'm wearing a watch and have been looking at or thinking about pace tables, race times, etc. recently comfortably hard is darn near impossible to find. Also I would describe comfortably hard as closer to the effort of a the first half of an even-paced half. The first hour of an even paced marathon is easy on tapered legs.

Every single thread about tempo runs people argue that tempo pace is harder than comfortably hard because it's being done in non-race conditions and not on fresh legs. What these people are missing is that if you're doing a tempo during the middle of a big training week, your pace should be slower to account for these factors as opposed to increasing your effort to hit the pace prescribed by the calculators.

Because of the variability in external and internal conditions from day to day, true threshold/tempo training can only be done by feel or by lactic measurement. If you're running it by time/pace and not accounting for external and internal conditions than you're most likely missing LT pace. If you do account for external and internal conditions by say for example adding +10s, tempo pace has become subjective and if it's going to be subjective it might as well be subjective feel rather than subjective time.

Runningart2004 wrote:

brithit wrote:

Not a bad respons. Neither is the pushup-one. It shouldn't feel harder than the 20/30 pushups when youre finished.

I think your rest is a bit too long though, Actual Coach. Personally I have a lactate meter and several friends use them too. Treshold training really isn't hard, true treshold belove 3.5 lactate. Its widely used by several great runners, especially in the nordic nations. The Ingebrigtsens religiously use it on all interval workouts. Same did Marius Bakken, and Karoline Grovdal does too.

What surprises me is why do I never see american elite runners use this? They can afford it...

If VO2Max and Lactate Threshold were never “discovered” how would you train? Would elite runners be slower today? Why or Why not?

It’s something we can measure so let’s make it important......

Alan

Don't be a fool. When great great runners use it, its not for no reason. I agree it would be interesting, but as you see Americans train by it, just not as accurate as its more by feeling and heart rate.

Take Norway: In the middle and long distance runners using lactate meters and treshold training is absolutely dominating nationally, and doing very very well internationally. Look up these runners:

Henrik, Filip and Jacob Ingebrigtsen. Karoline Grovdal (e.g: 9.13 solo run at 3 km hurdles), Marius Bakken (13.06), Sondre Moen (altough I don't think he uses it anymore?), Buraas etc.

I'm not saying you can't be a good runner not using this, I'm just saying its a good way to measure intensity. So why not? Its more accurate than heart rate.

I think elite runners would be slower. What we've seen in Nordic countries is a huge improvement in controlling the intensity of athletes training after introducing these tests/lactate meters. Thats the most important thing.

Scorpion_runner wrote:

Proof:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxJVtPT6rHo&t=6s

This is pretty much the same theme Livingstone talks about in Healthy Intelligent Training. The emphasis in the Lydiard style aerobic base building / marathon training phase is to do essentially what Daniels is saying there - push up against that LT, stress it, with the goal of shifting it further to the right at a higher running speed. And to do that using HR as a guide.

Anyway, I've been training with this methodology since late Nov '17. Two 1 hour tempos at sub-threshold speed per week, plus weekend long run, plus a fartlek (10-12 x alactic bursts of 10-15'ish secs buffered by moderate running). Throw in a bunch of longer easy running surrounding that. It's basically forced me to train easier, ditching the intense interval stuff that I would've normally thrown in every week, stopping me from racing during my training. I'm seeing the benefits of it now. My HR is lower across all of my running, my 1 hour tempos have increased from 6:25'ish pace down to 5:47 mpm, I'm running my long runs at 7mpm down to 6:20-6:30mpm at the same avg HR of ~150bpm, and I almost set a PR in a recent 5 mile road race (26:15) off of no specific training and with no taper. Right before I started this, I ran a turkey trot in 27:11 and felt awful.

Maybe this type of training is "outdated". But it sure seems to be working for me.

Anyone "tasting" lactate is way above their LT. By definition the lactate threshold is "the exercise intensity ABOVE WHICH lactate begins to accumulate in a non-linear fashion".

The LT occurs at different intensities (both absolute and relative) in different individuals. Generally speaking, you know when you cross (go at a higher intensity) the LT when talking becomes too much effort. I recall doing 9-10 mile progression runs with a group. We would start at 6:30 and then drop the pace down about 10-seconds per mile. We were all talking and have a great time and then somewhere about 4-5-6 miles some individuals began talking less and/or they talked with a lot of effort (some completely quit). Eventually everyone quit talking and took care of the task at hand.

Bottom line, below LT you can carry on a conversation without much effort. At the LT you can still carry on a conversation but it requires a bit more effort but it is quite manageable. Above the LT and you can't talk without quite a bit of effort and you would rather not. Most decent/competitive marathon runners can run at an intensity that is ~10% greater than that corresponding with the LT.

I have to disagree. I can run a 70 minute half and when running at my LT pace in training I cannot carry on a conversation.

Ok, you run a 70 minute half. We're missing a big piece of the puzzle. What pace do you run your LT runs at?