For Whom the Dogs Bark

Hey Flat,

I'm just curious, do you consider 70% or less, of your max HR to be LHR?

You need to mind a doctor who's a marathoner...one who will whip you into shape..!

I'd loved to have seen the trials!

Pretty analytical flat... all I can say is the excitement watching guys and gals pound out fast miles got to ya. You are just fine. You are the model of consistency.

Preston, according to one formula I have seen, there is something that John Parker calls a "Recovery Ceiling", which is 70% of your heart rate reserve (HRmax minus resting heart rate), added back to your resting heart rate. My HRmax is 193, and my resting heart rate is somewhere between 40 and 50, so assuming it is 50 my Recovery Ceiling is 150 bpm. At a resting heart rate of 40 my Recovery Ceiling would be 147. I have been using a different formula, which is to subtract your age from 180, then add 5 bpm if you are in shape, which puts me at 129. 150 bpm does not feel like a low heart rate run to me, but 130 does, so that is where I run it. I hit 140 toward the end of today's run because I was too proud to let my speed slip into the 11s, but I took comfort that it still might qualify as LHR by other formulas. Basically, I think the lower you run the higher percentage of fat you burn, but honestly I have never gone in and paid somebody to measure my fat versus glycogen burn ratio at various heart rates. Probably time to do that instead of guessing.

Rye, I want to be one of them! Meb says age is just a number, right?

So...My "Recovery Ceiling" would be:

(Max HR (180) – Resting HR (34)) x 70%) + Resting HR = 136

I think this is right..? I usually run my recovery runs at 140 or less. My Cross-Training (cycling) can vary quite a bit but rarely is it greater than 140 on a bike ride. Stationary cycling is usually more like 125.

Flat, good seeing y'all on Saturday. Take this with a huge grain of salt -- I've seen Sasha say to someone that 10:00 pace or slower doesn't make you any faster, because the mechanics are different than "running" although I may have the logic slightly wrong. I wonder if now that you are a lot more trained/conditioned than you were a couple years ago, that running 10:00 miles has stopped helping you.

Whatever it is, I bet you will get over that hump soon. Good run today, you are right about any 20-miler being a success.

i would have loved to have seen the trials!

agreed, any 20 is a good one.

i am with joe, one run does not make or break it. id just shrug it off. your the first guy to run 20 before he starts his boston training!

Preston, interesting to see your numbers plugged into the same formula. It explains a lot about why you run so fast at lower heart rates. (Also, another explanation is that you are just wicked fast.)

Joe, been thinking a lot about that one since you mentioned it yesterday. I think there may be something to it. I don't seem to be slower at actual race speeds, although I haven't run a real race for a while (that will change soon). I am pretty sure Sasha would get no good out of running 10-minute miles (or you either), and maybe that's becoming the case for me. It just bugs me that when I do it my heart rate is higher than it used to be, that's what I can't explain.

Dan, thanks for the encouragement. I will remember that Trials race for the rest of my life, it was special.

Flat - that would have been great to see, especially the looped course where you could watch them come by more than once. I have the race on my DVR and went through it a couple times. Pretty cool.

OK - I will have a go at this pace thing. I have to agree with what Joe said. Additionally, if you have a huge base built up like you do, I do not think it is required to keep running so much base, esp without increasing the pace. It's like adding water to a glass that is already full. I really don't think you are getting any benefit from these slow miles anymore. Lydiard was all about base miles, but he also said to run these as fast as you comfortably could. Use the mcmillian pace calculator from a recent 5k time - the easy pace and long run pace is what pace your base or easy miles should be run at. Recovery days are another matter, though, and that pace would probably be closer to what you are running on your LHR miles at, if you were running some tempo runs and faster stuff. Just my 2 cents.

David, you may be right, though I have no explanation for getting slower. Not getting faster seems logical enough. Anyway, I've got time to figure it out since I won't go into another base phase until after Boston. Until then the game will be to get as fast as I can without going stale like I did last fall.