Turning a mule into a race horse.

Pacing Mule

Yesterday

3 miles at easy effort - pace 10:00 avg. Nothing major to report.

Today
Plan was for 6 miles at marathon pace. Got dropped 6 miles from home which had the added bonus of running home all the way. I don't know if anyone else feels psychologically boosted when heading back on an out and back run. This was a pure back run . Took it handy enough for 1st mile warming up then let it go. Would need to be 9:10 for a 4 hour marathon, 9:44 for 4:15. I would have been happy anywhere in this range. Felt good and strong all the way through and splits came in actually a little under. (Which I know isn't too wise either)

10:23, 9:16, 9:03, 8:52, 9:03, 9:04
Averaged out at 9:17 over the 6.

3 easy miles tomorrow and then another crack at the LSR at weekend.

Btw what possesses people to try and stop you and ask for directions when in full flow ?

Murph_D

Pacing Mule wrote: »

Btw what possesses people to try and stop you and ask for directions when in full flow ?

It happens and I always oblige. Remember the old adage: A shark will die if it stops moving. A runner won't.

Pacing Mule

Murph_D wrote: »

It happens and I always oblige. Remember the old adage: A shark will die if it stops moving. A runner won't.

My approach is:
If on easy / long run happy to stop and talk.
If on time sensitive goal pace like yesterday invite the driver to drive along beside you - if they are going opposite direction it's a sorry can't stop am mid run.

Pacing Mule

Had to skip the planned 3 mile short run as I ended up with a stomach bug.

Fast forward to today and I wasn't really sure what to do with the long run. My choices were

a) Do it this afternoon - Was up for work at 5am this morning and really wasn't loving the idea of a boundry pushing LSR on top of it. or
b) Get up early tomorrow morning and do it then. Sunday being the only day off I get and I've grown quite accustomed to not getting up at 5am once a week.

Mentioned the dilemna to a dear friend who told me "get off your hole and go running" Motivational speaking being their strong point - a new mantra for me too.

After last weeks less than excellent LSR and on top of the sickness and early start this morning I was a little apprehensive but it turned out I need not have worried.

14 miles done @ 10:26 avg pace with miles 11-13 taking in a 100ft elevation gain. So a tough end on tired legs but was comfortable enough.

Felt good enough to attempt to knock out a couple of MP miles at the end coming in at 9:39 for the first and a more subdued 10:09 for mile 14. Legs were certainly feeling it by then. A lesson learned today too: cheap running socks from dealz are cheap for a reason - badly blistered after 10 miles and the last 4 were quite painful

Still all in all a good confidence booster and a huge improvement on last week.

Pacing Mule

Yesterday
Bit of deja vu on this. A 3 mile recovery run that was a total grind. Assuming I was still feeling the effects of the LSR on Saturday I didn't dwell on it.

Today
Today was a good day and an interesting day too. Got me a new watch - Garmin 310XT which is a huge improvement on my old Soleus 2.0 with the added benefit now of a heart rate monitor.

Plan called for 7 miles at marathon pace. Ever the optimist I went out aiming for 9:09 / 4:00 marathon pace. Took a bit of getting used to - wearing the heart rate monitor but results were a bit mad.

I haven't done a proper stress test to get my max HR - Garmin had a little formula of 220 - my age which gave me a 182 but I went higher than that towards the end. Splits / HR

9:03 / 154
9:00 / 160
9:07 / 161
9:15 / 167
9:05 / 173
8:46 / 178
8:53 / 182

So it's clear enough I was working harder by the end. Results skewed by miles 4 and 5 being uphill and 6 and 7 being at a higher pace. That said for those with experience out there would that have been expected ? and also in general is a rising heart rate a sign that a target MP is too optimistic ?

yaboya1

Pacing Mule wrote: »

Yesterday
Bit of deja vu on this. A 3 mile recovery run that was a total grind. Assuming I was still feeling the effects of the LSR on Saturday I didn't dwell on it.

Today
Today was a good day and an interesting day too. Got me a new watch - Garmin 310XT which is a huge improvement on my old Soleus 2.0 with the added benefit now of a heart rate monitor.

Plan called for 7 miles at marathon pace. Ever the optimist I went out aiming for 9:09 / 4:00 marathon pace. Took a bit of getting used to - wearing the heart rate monitor but results were a bit mad.

I haven't done a proper stress test to get my max HR - Garmin had a little formula of 220 - my age which gave me a 182 but I went higher than that towards the end. Splits / HR

9:03 / 154
9:00 / 160
9:07 / 161
9:15 / 167
9:05 / 173
8:46 / 178
8:53 / 182

So it's clear enough I was working harder by the end. Results skewed by miles 4 and 5 being uphill and 6 and 7 being at a higher pace. That said for those with experience out there would that have been expected ? and also in general is a rising heart rate a sign that a target MP is too optimistic ?

You can probably ignore the first mile as you're only getting warmed up. You seem to have reasons for it rising in Miles 4-7, so hard to make a call at this stage. I very much doubt 182 is your HRMax though. I doubt you would run a full mile without being pretty sure it was. I'd guess your max is in the 190's, maybe even higher? If you're going to train by HR, it's definitely advisable to be sure what your HRMax is first. Maybe do the HADD test or get it done properly somewhere?

adrian522

On Max HR, in the abscence of a stress test (yet) there is a good read here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_rate#Maximum_heart_rate


There are loads of different formulas, none of them all that accurate. One study reckons the "least objectionable" one was:

HRmax = 205.8 − (0.685 × age)

But for me that was still a good bit off.

Pacing Mule

yaboya1 wrote: »

You can probably ignore the first mile as you're only getting warmed up. You seem to have reasons for it rising in Miles 4-7, so hard to make a call at this stage. I very much doubt 182 is your HRMax though. I doubt you would run a full mile without being pretty sure it was. I'd guess your max is in the 190's, maybe even higher? If you're going to train by HR, it's definitely advisable to be sure what your HRMax is first. Maybe do the HADD test or get it done properly somewhere?

Cheers for the info P

I'm not exactly planning on going all out HR training but I'm interested now to see if my "easy" runs are being ran at the easy effort I think they are. With the goal posts changing so much (weight loss, general fitness improvement, running form improvements etc) my easy runs are running a good bit faster than they were a few months back. My perceived effort remains the same but I'm a little lost now with what are my accurate current paces.

menoscemo

Pacing Mule wrote: »

Yesterday
Bit of deja vu on this. A 3 mile recovery run that was a total grind. Assuming I was still feeling the effects of the LSR on Saturday I didn't dwell on it.

Today
Today was a good day and an interesting day too. Got me a new watch - Garmin 310XT which is a huge improvement on my old Soleus 2.0 with the added benefit now of a heart rate monitor.

Plan called for 7 miles at marathon pace. Ever the optimist I went out aiming for 9:09 / 4:00 marathon pace. Took a bit of getting used to - wearing the heart rate monitor but results were a bit mad.

I haven't done a proper stress test to get my max HR - Garmin had a little formula of 220 - my age which gave me a 182 but I went higher than that towards the end. Splits / HR

9:03 / 154
9:00 / 160
9:07 / 161
9:15 / 167
9:05 / 173
8:46 / 178
8:53 / 182

So it's clear enough I was working harder by the end. Results skewed by miles 4 and 5 being uphill and 6 and 7 being at a higher pace. That said for those with experience out there would that have been expected ? and also in general is a rising heart rate a sign that a target MP is too optimistic ?

The Heart is the engine of the body and your HR is pretty much like the temperature gauge in a car.
In a well tuned car engine the temperature will slowly rise over the first 10 minutes and then settle at a constant level for the rest of the journey. This is the same as the HR of a runner with a well tuned 'engine'. Whether it be a 5k or a marathon; a runner with a well tuned engine will get up to speed/Race HR over the first 5 minutes or so and then the HR (temperature) will remain constant for the rest of the race without losing pace.

Obviously an exponentially rising HR is indicative that the runner is going to blow up much like a car would blow a gasket if the temperature keeps rising. I agree that your Max HR is probably in the 200's but you really need to be keeping the HR down further than the above to run a consistent marathon

The ideal is to train the heart to maintain a constant effort over time without slowing up; this will improve your marathon times but also your 5ks (as you will be able to go out hard for the first mile and maintain this pace at close to your max effort). How to train the engine? lots and lots of slow (low effort) and steady miles, it probably takes years and years to be honest. Check out yaboya's log and the Hadd training doc for more info.

If you are going to use the HRM for the rest of your training I advise doing your easy runs with a capped HR, display only HR on the screen and trying to keep it below the cap at all times (not just the overall average). Thsi will certainly help fine tune the engine a bit over the next 10 weeks but as I say it is a long term process.

Pacing Mule

Excellent advise Meno. Much appreciated.

I guess my next step at some point soon is to get an accurate max HR. At that stage what percentage of max hr effort would / should an easy run be aimed at.

Ososlo

Pacing Mule wrote: »

Excellent advise Meno. Much appreciated.

I guess my next step at some point soon is to get an accurate max HR. At that stage what percentage of max hr effort would / should an easy run be aimed at.

you doing a race soon? you could wear it and run the last bit all-out.
I ran sub 75% of max as easy and recovery pace and it worked a treat.

Pacing Mule

Ososlo wrote: »

you doing a race soon? you could wear it and run the last bit all-out.
I ran sub 75% of max as easy and recovery pace and it worked a treat.

No race due - Yaboyas post earlier on gave a method of 800m at all out pace, 1 min rest and then 400m all out again. Might give that a go as part of my run tomorrow. Am only scheduled to do 4 miles per the plan so it makes sense to do it then prior to the LSR on Saturday / Sunday.

menoscemo

Pacing Mule wrote: »

Excellent advise Meno. Much appreciated.

I guess my next step at some point soon is to get an accurate max HR. At that stage what percentage of max hr effort would / should an easy run be aimed at.

Yeah i would agree with Ososlo, about 75% max.
Hadd recommends 50 BPM below max but I think this is a bit of a flaw, as 50bpm is huge for someone with a max of say 160 compared to someone with a max of 200+.

Whichever number you choose I think the important thing is to keep it below that number at all times (on easy days). If you are able to say run a 10 mile run at 150bpm and the second mile is the same pace as the 10th mile with the same HR (assuming a flat windless course) then you are going places. You will then likely also be able to hold an even (albeit faster) pace at higher HRs.

Pacing Mule

Today on the plan was meant to be a 4 mile easy but I figured I may as well have a go at gauging an accurate max HR.

This is all very very interesting to me. I have read the Hadd document floating about too and for the first time ever I actually truly understand the reasons why slow running / running at the correct easy pace is so important to progress. I was actually quite saddened to learn that the man behind the Hadd username online passed from a sudden heart attack in 2011 whilst out running himself.

Anyway onto the test itself. I may have sold myself slightly short on this. The test is to do 800m flat out, rest for 2 min and then do another 400 flat out. I was however bunched by the end of both segments and actually cut the 400 short. I had ran out of energy / oxygen / leg turning ability but I did suspect I may have had another couple of beats higher that I could have gone with a dose of HTFU. Tried a third go at it but was unable to sustain a high pace for a full 400m and didn't get the HR up over the first 2 segments max. For the moment my max HR is 192 but as I said I may be a couple of beats short there.

During the test I broke my PR for half mile 3:04 and 400m at 1.28. Also broke my 1k @4:23 but that was from a 200m gentle jog into the 800m dash.

Plugging my best performance race to date - a sub 40 5 miler into Mcmillan would put the half mile (800m figure) at 3:06 so the test was probably accurate enough.

As a matter of interest I ran a very easy slow warmup 11min pace for 1.5 miles at a heart rate of 142 which is close to the 75% of max HR mentioned by Ososlo and Meno. Most of my easier runs recently have been around 10:30 so it will be interesting to see how the LSR at the weekend looks like HR wise.

dukeraoul

Pacing Mule wrote: »

Today on the plan was meant to be a 4 mile easy but I figured I may as well have a go at gauging an accurate max HR.

This is all very very interesting to me. I have read the Hadd document floating about too and for the first time ever I actually truly understand the reasons why slow running / running at the correct easy pace is so important to progress. I was actually quite saddened to learn that the man behind the Hadd username online passed from a sudden heart attack in 2011 whilst out running himself.

Anyway onto the test itself. I may have sold myself slightly short on this. The test is to do 800m flat out, rest for 2 min and then do another 400 flat out. I was however bunched by the end of both segments and actually cut the 400 short. I had ran out of energy / oxygen / leg turning ability but I did suspect I may have had another couple of beats higher that I could have gone with a dose of HTFU. Tried a third go at it but was unable to sustain a high pace for a full 400m and didn't get the HR up over the first 2 segments max. For the moment my max HR is 192 but as I said I may be a couple of beats short there.

During the test I broke my PR for half mile 3:04 and 400m at 1.28. Also broke my 1k @4:23 but that was from a 200m gentle jog into the 800m dash.

Plugging my best performance race to date - a sub 40 5 miler into Mcmillan would put the half mile (800m figure) at 3:06 so the test was probably accurate enough.

As a matter of interest I ran a very easy slow warmup 11min pace for 1.5 miles at a heart rate of 142 which is close to the 75% of max HR mentioned by Ososlo and Meno. Most of my easier runs recently have been around 10:30 so it will be interesting to see how the LSR at the weekend looks like HR wise.

Not a fan of the HR training stuff (possibly cause I'm too stupid to understand it fully) but sounds like you gave it a good go on the test. I reckon you must have hit quite close to max HR if you ran PBs along the way and were in what sounds like total oxygen debt.

Chivito550

PR? Half Mile? Are you American? Or grown up watching athletics in the 1950s? Make sure to do some 220 yard reps while you're at it

Pacing Mule

dukeraoul wrote: »

Not a fan of the HR training stuff (possibly cause I'm too stupid to understand it fully) but sounds like you gave it a good go on the test. I reckon you must have hit quite close to max HR if you ran PBs along the way and were in what sounds like total oxygen debt.

Good to see you back.

I'm not 100% jumping into it tbh. I don't think I am anywhere near the level that would truly benefit from an in-depth approach to things. The look at the heart rate was triggered by my shiny new garmin toy

What has interested me though is be it heart rate effort based or otherwise is the science behind the benefit of running at the correct paces for the easier and slower runs to get maximum benefit in the long term. I'm still very inexperienced with running and am also in a situation where progress is coming rapidly, the goal posts are moving and a look at heart rates is a great way to ensure the easy runs are as easy as they should be and that marathon pace runs are in the right

For example - my last 7 miler @ MP looked at in the overall scheme of things is encouraging enough. The conventional 80-85% of max effort puts me at a 155/165 rate for a sustainable marathon run. Hadd I gather would give me a max of 172. Miles 1-4 are in that range but by mile 5 I was heading into unsustainable territory. Heart rate went higher again for 6 and 7 but I was running at faster than MP at that point. Next time around I will make a point of holding back a bit on hills and not chasing the final 2 and see if the HR is more constant and within sustainable effort ranges.

It's all new to me but I think I can benefit from it by understanding it.

Pacing Mule

Chivito550 wrote: »

PR? Half Mile? Are you American? Or grown up watching athletics in the 1950s? Make sure to do some 220 yard reps while you're at it

Ha - blame strava on that. Doesn't seem to track 800m blocks at all.

It does give a nod to track enthusiasts like yourself with the 400m figures so it's the best of both worlds.

Pacing Mule

Disastrous LSR (SSR) as it turned out.

Went out to do 16. Managed less than 3 before calling for a lift home and abandoning it. No injury just absolutely zero energy left after 2 miles. It wouldn't have been any use at all to struggle on for a half marathon. Was up at work since 5am so this may be a factor. Day off tomorrow so will see how I feel and might have another go at it then.

adrian522

What had you eaten/drank during the day?

I've had that happen a few times too.

Pacing Mule

adrian522 wrote: »

What had you eaten/drank during the day?

I've had that happen a few times too.

Thought I had done well. Got in from work at 2. Had an hours sleep. Bowl of weetabix, banana and some tea and toast an hour before leaving. Had a chicken wrap around 11 and some breakfast at 5.

I was expecting to struggle a bit towards the end alright due to the working day before it but when it was the expected end of run struggle less than 2 miles in I called a halt to it. If it had of been one of the shorter runs I am sure I could have grinded it out but didn't see the point in struggling on for that long a run.

adrian522

Yeah, one just to mark down to experience I guess

Murph_D

Tough one - this has happened to me too but usually after a longer period. In some ways the first few miles of a long run are the hardest, I've found, especially if you are tired and thinking of another 15 to go etc. Sounds like you were well nourished so maybe just general tiredness? 5am starts can't be too easy!

Pacing Mule

The job I do at moment is quite physical. It's 6 days a week 5am starts. Last week took out 14 miles without too much hassle on a similar day. I had been saying to myself that it was a good idea to get used to the LSR whilst tired so that on marathon day fatigue wouldn't be anything new. That may have been a mistake.

That said Murph tbh wasn't in the mood for it going out yesterday. Had been delayed getting ready, had watch issues (will come back to that another day if the same thing happens again) and left having to change routes. It's very possible that the mind just said feck this and sub conciously sabotaged myself. I really didn't have any compulsion to do a long run at all feeling that bad so soon in. Would be a bit disappointed with myself if that was the case

Up at 8 this morning so a lie in there. Minding the baby for a while so having me some breakfast and will head out around 9:30. Hopefully will be back later to report something a bit more successful.

Pacing Mule

15 miles at 10:48 avg pace and avg heart rate 150. Will take that considering the fail yesterday.

Pacing Mule

Tuesday

4 miles easy (ish) @ 9:51 - bit too fast for easy to be fair.

Thursday

8 miles @ MP 9:28

I've decided to work towards a marathon target of 4:10:00 for the moment. As optimistic as I can be for a sub 4 I think it would be pushing it a bit too much. Meno posted a very interesting point on the novices log about paces and the difference in comfort / realistic times that even falling back by 5 minutes can make. If I take the reverse of that - pushing myself towards a sub 4 that I'm not 100% ready for and it's not going to be pleasant. I was actually going to fall back to 4:15 but I do fancy running with a pace group and they are at 10 min intervals at DCM.

Plan tonight called for 8 miles at MP. With the above in mind I went out aiming for 9:30 pace and hoping that the heart rate would be within the realms of what it should be. It was a very windy day though and the effort levels went up and down depending on the wind at the time. Again my local area is a bit hilly so things get skewed a bit by that too.

9:13 - 148
9:34 - 159
9:31 - 159
9:25 - 163
9:32 - 168
9:36 - 169
9:36 - 171
9:25 - 165

So what to take from that. Similar to the last MP run (at faster pace) the heart rate climbs. I don't know if that's normal or not does the "engine" gradually warm up over a few miles and then settle ? HR monitoring is all new to me. In mile 8 when I got away from the head wind and hill the heart rate dropped back down which I am hopeful is a sign that I wasn't on a track to a blow up. HR peaked at 89% of max which I gather would be considered a little high for a sustainable marathon tilt. 2 months left to DCM though so I'm happy enough there is still room for progress fitness wise to pull that HR down a bit.

Pacing Mule

4 miles tonight at a proper easy pace avg 10:45.

10:45, 129
10:44, 138
10:43, 143
10:48 146

Very easy pace, easy consistent effort yet heart rate rose.

A bit of research has dug up the concept of "cardiac drift" which is more than likely already familiar to most readers here but is new to me and all part of the learning curve that is running.

From excercisemed.org ....

Cardiovascular drift is the term that describes the physiological changes in heart function during prolonged exercise. During prolonged exercise, stroke volume steadily drops as the heart rate increases. Stroke volume is the amount of blood the heart pumps with every beat. Cardiac output is a function of stroke volume times heart rate. Therefore, cardiac output may remain constant during prolonged exercise despite the increase in heart rate due to compensation from a drop in stroke volume. Often the decrease in stroke volume actually drops cardiac output despite the increasing heart rate.

The screenshot and quote below coming from an article on runnersconnect.net

Here’s an illustration of how cardiac drift looks on a 20 mile long run:







This is an actual Garmin report with the athletes training pace overlaid with their heart rate data. As you can see, the pace remains relatively constant (blue) while the heart rate (red) continually increases.
It is important to emphasize that cardiovascular drift results in an increased heart rate without a corresponding rise in effort, breathing rate, or calories burned. In the long run pictured above, the athlete reported no changes in breathing rate or effort.

I've probably bored most of you with that but thought it might be interesting for other inexperienced people like myself who come across it for the first time.

menoscemo

Cardiac drift is generally a sign of an undertrained athelte (sorry if that seems harsh). I know I have eliminated it over the years, but even now If I am lacking endurance at the start of a Marathon program then my HR will start rising at the end of the run.
Here is an example of a very long run when I was in good long distance shape ( while ultra training) http://connect.garmin.com/activity/157329956 In that run My HR only rose at the end of the run (ignoring the HRM anomalies in mile 1 and 5) because of upping the pace.

Have a look at yaboya's log for some steady HR running. Bear in mind he has been following Hadd training for a while though. Here is an example of one of those steady HR runs from a few weeks ago:

yaboya1 wrote: »

Tuesday 29th July - 135 minutes Easy
15.14m @ 8:55/m average (115bpm avg)

Due to my shift patterns this week and since I took a complete rest day yesterday, today was my only real opportunity to get a long run in. I decided to take it very easily, as the last thing I need to be doing at the moment is injuring myself unnecessarily. Happy enough with how it went. Will get a Steady session in on Friday and will fit in as many easy miles as I can around work on the other days.


Splits:

Mile 1 - 8:52 (113bpm)
Mile 2 - 9:08 (117bpm)
Mile 3 - 9:12 (117bpm)
Mile 4 - 8:54 (115bpm)
Mile 5 - 8:57 (116bpm)
Mile 6 - 9:20 (116bpm)
Mile 7 - 9:05 (116bpm)
Mile 8 - 8:50 (117bpm)
Mile 9 - 8:35 (109bpm)
Mile 10 - 9:01 (110bpm)
Mile 11 - 8:39 (115bpm)
Mile 12 - 8:30 (114bpm)
Mile 13 - 8:45 (120bpm)
Mile 14 - 9:00 (117bpm)
Mile 15 - 8:52 (118bpm)
0.14 - 1:21 (113bpm)

There was a good thread based on this a few years ago started by Belcarra (who ended up training himself into having a flat HR graph. Might be worth a read:
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=77119369

Bottom line is that it is best to be conseravtive this marathon cycle as effort levels are bound to rise during the race, however if you train a lot between this one and the next you can do a lot to eliminate this and be able to maintain a hardish effort for the whole 26.2 miles.

Pacing Mule

Not harsh at all Meno. I'm still very much a noobie at all this and will be under trained for quite some time yet

menoscemo

Have a read through the thread linked, it is very interesting and was an eyeopener to myself.
I said in that thread that I could never hold an AvHr of more than 155 for a marathon, but interestingly only a few months later I held 160 (in the activity linked above). It's just funny how good training changes your bodies ability to hold a higher effort but also make it seem easier.
This is all reason to be optimistic; nothing is impossible with lots of training and sensible work. You can train your body to be anything you want it to be and there is loads of potential for improvement.