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Feb
7
2008
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Physiological Tests: Another Update! |
DUBLIN, IRELAND (Team Geared Up) As I was saying in a previous post, I had some “Human Performance” tests done in Trinity, more out of curiosity than anything else, navel-gazing if you like really! Commenter Nigel from Irish Climbing Coaching very kindly offered to analyse the results so initially I sent him on a small amount of the information I got from Trinity and from that he drew the following very spookily, accurate conclusions:
I reckon that:
1) You run your marathons (42km) at pretty close to the 3 hour mark - give or take 3 mins.
2) You do most of your training at between 13-15 km/hr or a HR of about 165 - 175 bpm.
3) I reckon you either have very short legs, or you do very little resistance training :-)
Spooky or what!!! Short legs! If they were any shorter I wouldn’t need a knee joint. So we met today and went through the info in more detail and I was shocked by the conclusions. It was amazing how scientific it all was. So you mean it’s not just a case of one foot in front of the other? You mean there’s a way of getting better that doesn’t involve just running more? Seriously though he was so professional and had charted out the graphs that would tell me my areas for improvement. Now obviously Nigel explained it in a much more professional manner but basically, my VO2 is pretty good, my Lactate Threshold and RER (Respiratory Exchange Ratio) is good so the area I’ve to work on is my Running Economy. So we have devised a plan, tailored to the fact that I’m running Rotterdam in 9 weeks (so nothing too drastic!!) and before you know it I’ll be running Personal Bests and breaking records all around me….well maybe not, but he certainly instilled in me a huge sense of “Wow this sounds great, I’m going to do all I can to improve” because everything he said made so much sense. Everyone should get themselves a Nigel…..
(Thanks Nigel!)
I will update you on the new regime as it goes on.
-Aisling-
Image from Science Daily.
Latest Comments (8):
Fascinating, keep us posted.
Also, I love lucy.
Now you’ll have all the other runners scared after they read this. I did say it to you yesterday :)
Best of luck and can’t wait to see how it goes!
ha ha Neal. We’re really changing nothing at all just putting up posts as an intimidation tactic!!
Just kiddin’…. ;-)
I did a long run today with the intention of staying within a certain HR zone. Last week for my long run I just ran as I always did and took note of where my heart rate was and it was at about 145 in a comfort zone of about 2 out of 10. On a long run I go out real easy and stay that way.
For todays long run I decided to try stay within 155 to 160. Throughout the run it averaged about a comfort level of 5 out of ten i.e. it was a harder effort than I’d normally put in for a 3 hour run but there was no problems.
I found that going downhill I had to push myself to maybe 7 or 8 out of ten to get the heart rate up to 155 and then uphill the effort dropped to 1 out of ten to get the heart rate to stay at that level.
Time flies when you’re looking at your watch every ten seconds and it felt good to be putting in more effort than usual!
Anyone else tried the HR thing recently want to let me know if they had the same experience?
From my experiences before (I started with a Suunto watch using Polar HRM kit, and then using a basic Polar model after the Suunto was nicked), that sounds similar enough.
Honestly, after a few weeks, you’ll find you don’t need to look at it that much to know what you’re doing - you’ll be able to ‘feel’ it.
I know I would’ve found a 155-160 range hard to keep but I suppose it’s just habit - normally I would’ve had something like your 145-160 range. More flexibility, and I found it psychologically easier with a bit more range. It’s definitely a bit harder when you’re dealing with uphill and downhill to adjust around. the benefit of having to pick up speed on downhill is that it’s forcing you to exert energy on downhills also more than usual (a good thing that transfers to races as you get used to pushing hard coming off a hill).
Still though, sounds like you’re on the right track :)
People’s level of stress (out of 10) will depend on their fitness levels also of course.
think that all makes sense :) Think I should go do an official training/coaching course in this, instead of picking it all up from books/sites/etc. ;)
Ais out of interest, why did you “decide” to stay b/w 155-160? Is that your lactate threshold or what do those figures represent?
Hi Jackie, it’s part of a plan devised by Nigel. I can’t explain the whole “threshold” thing, so I’m not sure. But it was a difficulty level of about 5 out of ten on that day so still comfortable. I wanted to try going a little harder than normal anyway, (I’m such a lazy runner) so when someone told me I could comfortably sustain that pace I thought “let’s go for it”.
must be the level just before u produce lactate then and maybe that way your increasing your lactate threshold. Fair play at being able to sustain a comfortable level of 2/10 @ 145 bpm. I reckon I’d be closer 2 5 at that level!
Very good! Keep it up! ;)
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