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Scott Johnston
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Polsen:
In general I prefer an actual field test like a race for setting zones because it is a true measure of your performance. Marathon pace will be a bit above AeT typically. I could see your AeT being in the high 160s-170. The 1/2 marathon HR is probably close to your AnT given that you ran it in 1:15. So maybe high 170s-180. Something that jumps out to me is the disparity between you 1/2 and full marathon times. That might indicate that you are slowing in the longer race due to local muscular fatigue in the propelling muscles. The remedy can be doing some muscular endurance work. For a road runner this can be done using hill work.
I hope this helps,
Scott
Ali:
With a near term goal you do need to include the stair and even weighted carries on the stairs 1-2x/week max (one of each). Do any unweighed Z2 sessions on the incline treadmill and reserve the stairs for higher intensity where you allow your HR to get up into Z3. In your case maybe hold HR to 145. For the weighted sessions disregard HR completely. Improving AeT is super important. However you need the higher intensity and specificity of the stairs or you will struggle on your climb. In cases like yours you will be going on this climb with an underdeveloped aerobic capacity but that will just take more time to improve but you need to specificity of the stairs.
I hope this helps
Scott
Part of the problem is that you used two different tests to determine your AeT. I would recommend repeating the same drift test as you did 18months ago. I would also recommend re-doing the drift test more frequently or anytime you see an increase in pace for the same HR. Or you could use this lactate test as the base line and re-test with lactate every 4-6 weeks of consistent training. Lactate is heavily affected by what you have eaten in the few hours before. Also it is important to be consistent to see improvement in AeT (as it is with any training). If you have had breaks from consistency in the past 18 month that can explain a lack of progress. We normally will see quite significant gains in either HR or pace during 18months of consistent aerobic base training (on the order of 10-30%).
I hope this helps,
Scott
Nolan:
Thanks for writing in with these questions and welcome to Evoke Endurance. I understand your confusion and hope to clear things up a bit.
It is common but not universally true that the AeT HR will differ between uphill and flat running or hiking. We normally suggest testing both, hence the treadmill to see if you need to adjust for hilly terrain outside.
Next thing: You have heard me say that local muscular fatigue is what slows us in longer harder efforts. That is true for beginners and pros. It is what determined the AnT not the heat’s ability to deliver O2 since this is a submit effort. What I mean by that is that a max effort can only be sustained for a few of minutes. That’s when the cardiac output becomes the limiter.
Similarly the gradient will affect the AnT test because you will be recruiting more muscle mass, and more forceful muscle fibers that are not as well aerobically conditioned. On a steep grade like 27% this effect is very likely to rear its ugly head. I recommend doing this test on a grade that is close to the what you normally train on, go out a bit easier and pick up the pace later if you feel you can manage that. And get a really good warm up.
Steep uphill training is fantastic for building muscular endurance which will directly improve your uphill AnT.
I doubt very much that your AeT and AnT are stacked right on top of one another like you are inferring from these tests.
I hope this helps. Good luck.
Scott
Pete:
Sorry to be slow getting back to you. We’ve been swamped. There is a lot to unpack here but I will try to be succinct.
The test itself sounds like it was conducted using a pretty standard protocol. However, I can’t see the data or even the lactate numbers so don’t know what they were doing to determine those zones for you.
I value field tests and experience in everyday training far more than lab tests. These values change based on recovery state on the day. They are not fixed in stone. This lab test is like a snapshot on a single day. IMHO your experience out training and using the simple field tests we recommend which can be repeated for free anytime you see changes in performance outweigh the lab unless you can get into the lab regularly.
For determining the second threshold I MUCH prefer to use a field test like a 30-45min time trial to find the average speed/average HR the athlete can maintain for the duration top determine AnT/LT2. This is an actual performance test and your average speed and/HR are a true indication of your maximum sustainable output. Where as in that lab you are transitioning through that intensity for only 4 minutes. That may coincide with your maximum stainable pace but in my experience is over estimates it because you can be comfortable for 4 min at a higher speed than for 40min.
In your case the Z3 spread is only 7 bpm which is outstanding but comes with a significant caveat. No doubt your paces at AeT and AnT are also quite similar. This means that while the metabolic load at the top of Z2 is still quite aerobic the neuromuscular load is almost the same as at AnT. Check the paces you are running at these two points during the test and see if they are also only a fe percent different. The well aerobically trained can’t constantly train at AeT because of this mechanical stress from the high speed. Z2 training needs to be more carefully controlled and applied for these fit athletes as opposed to the less well aerobically developed who can train a very high volume of Z2 because they are moving much slower and the mechanical stress is a lot lower.
Now, this is not a definitive diagnosis because I do not have all the information. But, it might help you understand the test better.
From what you say, chances are that you can’t run daily for hours at a time at this new AeT they have assigned you. While that HR/pace may indeed reflect your metabolic state that corresponds with the top of Z2 you would become overtrained in a couple of weeks training in that Zone.
This is something I have spoken and written about extensively but with all the hype around Z2 these days I have no heard one of the ‘influencers’ mention this little but crucial detail.
I hope this helps and sorry again for the slow reply.
Scott
Great question but here’s a not great answer:
No one knows how where that point of diminishing returns is! The comment you heard from me in a podcast is: If you can’t deadlift your body weight you might see gains in running performance with increasing that number. This is just my opinion that deadlifting 1.5xBW and back squatting 1xBW are likely to help your overall sport performance and durability. Speding hours and hours in the gym trying to increase your deadlift to 2xBW is just going to take time away from more spent specific training. These lifts are great general strength movements but, again in my opinion, have poor transferability to endurance sports once these numbers are reached. However they can provide a great base for progressing to more sport specific strength and power movements as well as muscular endurance. Power (the rate at which force or strength can be applied)and muscular endurance (the ability of a muscle to produce a high % of of its max force for many repetitions) are really what we care about in sports. Those general strength movements are done at speeds in on the order of 1-4 seconds. This is far slower than the rate of force production in running for instance. Thus the brain is not learning to recruit and fire the propelling muscles in the same way it would do in, say, running. So, while those power lifters are very strong they are not necessarily very powerful. The Olympic lifts of clean-and-jerk and snatch are the epitome of power. To enhance endurance sport performance strength must be converted to the much more spent specific qualities of power and muscular endurance. Even when developed in only semi sport-specific ways like high rep Bulgarian split squat as an example of a muscular endurance exercise or hurdle hops when it comes to power, these transfer very well to improving endurance performance.Think of the progression being:
#1- Increase general strength
#2- Move on to more sport specific strength
#3- Use that sport specific strength to develop sport specific power and muscular endurance.
All that said I have had many athletes just do #3 when they have limited general strength experience, have a rapidly approaching event, or don’t have access to a gym. They will see good gains in both power and muscular endurance. Maybe not as big of gains as they would have it they had many months for the full progression, but impressive gains regardless. But this method is less likely to reduce sarcopenia or improve daily strength.
The hill sprint workout described here is my go to power exercise for all mountain athletes. Similarly the various forms of muscular endurance routine described here have a powerful training effect and transfer well to all mountain sports.
I hope this helps,
Scott
Fred:
Sorry for the late reply. First let me say that your English is great. I’ve met native English speakers who cold not put there sentences together so well. Now on to your question.
Clearly the last test started at too high of of a speed so disregard it. While it is possible that your aerobic capacity increased in one week, I doubt your AeT would increase very much. Regardless of the test results if training with 148 as an AeT leaves you quite tired with heavy legs this is too high of a speed/heart rate. Given your life history I think your choice of 140 as the top of your Zone 2 or AeT is a better place for you to train for the next 6 weeks. There will be a day sometime after 4 weeks of careful training in the 130-14o range when you notice that you are going faster. Maybe you will be on a trail you go to frequently and that day you will notice that you are (I’m just making up the number) 2min faster than normal to some land mark. This is happening because your aerobic capacity has increased and this would be a good time to do another drift test maybe using 145 as the starting HR. This process takes patience but you will see gains over the months in both pace and HR at AeT. Don’t try to force the improvement. Let it happen. If you need to walk on some hills to stay below 140 that is what you must do. The biggest improvement in aerobic capacity will come from consistency and a high volume of this training. If your legs are too tired for training too hard you will not be able to achieve either a high volume of consistency.
I hope this helps
Scott
maolillia;
So sorry to hear about your prolonged struggle with injury. My answer might be too late for you this time but consider it for the future. Here is what we typically do with injured runners: cycling, elliptical, treadmill hiking at an incline, using a device like the Lever .
I hope this helps and sorry to be so slow in replying.
Scott
Welcome to the world of mountain running. You have figured out that it is not as simple as training for road running. One of the reasons we suggest tracking distance, vertical and most importantly HOURS. A 15km run on rolling terrain and good footing is a very different animal than a muddy 15km on rough trails with 900m of vert. One of the difficulties of training for mountain running is that you must train for these extremes and everything in between. you might want read this article https://evokeendurance.com/resources/training-for-mountain-running/
I suggest the Luke Nelson plan.
Scott
I confess to being bit confused by your question. The Z2 base work is critical for success in long events. However I would normally recommend just adding more easy volume to the weeks in the plan if you feel you handle it. It sounds like you extended your base period another 2 weeks. Nothing wrong with that. I would not cutout the gym ME from the plan. I question the wisdom of doing another race 2 weeks prior to the original planned date. Because you will need to taper for that race and then need some recovery time afterward. Both of those cut into valuable training time. If I am missing the point please add more detail.
Scott
Risto:
With a mountaineering goal and 8-12 weeks left to prepare I suggest continuing the weighted uphill ME workouts along with the Z1, 2 and 3 work you suggest.
Scott
So sorry to have missed this question. By now you are already closing in on your race. But hopefully this will help you next time. Subbing 30-30s for the uphill Z3 work makes sense because this event is shorter and flatter. The benefit of the 30-30s is that they allow you to recruit higher force fibers and give them an aerobic stimulus. This will lead to an increase in running economy.
Sorry again and good luck in your race,
Scott
You’ve just shown that the advertising slogan “Red Bull Gives Wings” is true. The sugar boosted the glycolytic (carbs) contribution to the energy needed for these test. The caffeine jacked your HR. As test you can put on your HR chest strap and drink a Red Bull. You will see your resting HR 5-10bpm higher if not more. Rising from 155 to low 160s over the test (3-4%) indicates that you were very close to your aerobic threshold when you started at 155. My recommendation would be to use that for the upper end of Z2 and retest, without the Red Bull, in a 4-6 weeks.
I hope this helps,
ScottGuys:
Sorry for your troubles using TP. I recommend contacting TP customer support so you can address specific details. I don’t know what the problems are that are causing you so much trouble but hundreds of people each month buy training plans and I have never heard these complaints. In the end this is way above my pay grade and all I can offer is to contact TP help. Do this by clicking on Training Peaks in the upper right hand corner of you calendar and submit a help ticket.
Scott
Mattias:
It is fine to mix max strength and ME in the same week as they have entirely different training effects. The max strength workouts should not be exhausting and could even involve some single leg lower body exercises like box step ups and Bulgarian Split Squat. Try that and see if you are recovering well. If not recovering drop the lower body max strength.
Scott
