[alexbasore32]

I recently conducted a HR drift test and I’m hoping I have a valid test. I began with a 15-18ish minute warm up. I planned on 15, but increased my speed at about the 13-14 min marker because I didn’t think I was at a good starting point. From minute 14 until the end of the test I was at 15% grade and 2.5 mph, No adjustments were made after minute 14. I took the average heart rate between minute 14-18 and got a starting HR of 134ish. It looks like the 1st half (minute 18:30-47:00) I got an average of 141 and the second half (47:00-1:15:00) of 148. I know you want to aim for a 5% drift, but is it 5% of 134 so only 6-7 beats? If so, I think I am right on the cusp? Any information or interpretation would be greatly appreciated. I think I am an avid ADS sufferer and continue to exert myself well above AeT.

Also, I am mostly a hiker, but would like to possibly incorporate running into my training. Every time I run even if it’s super slow my HR still jumps sky high. I have seen recommendations saying to Run 2 minutes: Walk 2 minutes. I was wondering, do people just run 2 walk 2 for couple weeks or months? And then what would be an improvement to build upon? Reducing the walk time while slowly building up the run time? Run 2 minutes walk 1?

[Max Krause]

I won’t speak to the drift test but I have some experience getting into running. When starting running the main worry isn’t lack of fitness but lack of leg strength leading to injury. So even if you are quite fit (or especially if you’re quite fit!) you’d want to start with run walking. I personally didn’t use this but some friends have had success using the couch to 5k program when getting into running or recovering from injury.

As for fitness my personal experience is that at the start it’s easy to improve. In retrospect I trained really poorly when I got into running from hiking a couple years ago (way over AeT all the time) but at that stage of fitness it’s so easy to improve that it didn’t matter. So my advice would be do the couch to 5k to build your legs and then redo the drift test as your AeT will probably have made a jump. And then you can decide whether to stick with run walking or go to consistent running.

[Scott Johnston]

Alex:

It looks like you did the test correctly and did the calculation right as well  148/141 give s a drift of 5%.  So your starting HR of 135 is your AeT and the top of Z2.

There are a lot of variations of the run/walk progression and you will need to determine the ratio or running time to walking time as you move through this. When you can run longer than 2 minutes without having your HR spike above 135 then you can extend the run time. When your HR drips below 135 in less than 2 minutes you can shorten the walking time.   The rate of progress will largely be determined but your run/walk volume and your genetics and age.  Be patient. It will improve and in a few months you will be a different runner and in a year you will be running 10-20% faster at AeT than when you started. It does work.  For more information on the drift test please refer to the following article.

Scott

Updated Thinking on Aerobic Assessment for Mountain Athletes

[alexbasore32]

http://tpks.ws/IFRNBMHJ2C4KN5PBP7FPS

I attached my training peaks workout of my HR drift test, if this helps.

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