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Base Training Revisited
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Maybe MM can clarify the point.
It is all very interesting but for someone as new to all of this as me, it is also very confusing - I've been doing BT for only 4 weeks in total
The cardiac drift stuff I can understand and identify with - one question about this - is you get a drift of up to 5bpm - do you carry on running at this level or try and slow down to reduce HR?
I do 99% of my training in the gym as it comfortable, and safe - I've no training partner and wouldn't feel too happy trotting round in the dark on my own - anyway I need to get my money's worth out of my gym membership.
You are right - your HR will drift out of the right area and you'll be producing more lactate than intended so won't be training your body to mop it up at that HR intensity.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Id never fecking run mate
im permanently tired
I, and I bet loads of others, train with less than the optimum of all these variables.
But i suppose, if you do aerobically conditon yourself, then your body copes better with these variables?
However if it is happening consistently you need to look at other aspects of your lifestyle (as I have recently) such as diet, sleep and water intake.
I take all of what you say - but as you point out BR - these are lifestyle type issues that are affecting your performance in HR terms and not necessarily your (not you personally) fitness. As Hippo rightly says - ability to cope with lower levels of hydration, tiredness, glycogen etc may be an indicator of fitness, but actually the essence of the "drift" concept is based around fitness in running (aerobic or anearobic) not fitness in the periphary contributers (lifetsyle) such as tiredness, hydrations et al.
I'm sorry, but your arguements don't sound convincing (to me anyway!). If cardiac drift effects stroke volume, what adverse effect is that going to have on latic threshold. If you're running at 70%MHR (equivalent to 50% Vo2max, a pace which MM rightly identifies asas being below the lower level of the range of "rat" intensities studied by Dudley) and LT is 90%MHR (ie 83% VO2max), that represents an enormous amount of drift required before we're borrowing (to use a Hadd phrase) from our anaerobic energy sources.
Furthermore why does cardiac stability at 50% VO2max make it easier to get the same stability at 83% VO2max. Why don't I do what Daniels suggests, and run threshold paced runs at 83% VO2max and attempt to control cardiac drift at this pace. The slow pace running doesn't seem relevant.
Finally on reviewing the thread, neither of you have responded to MM's point about the Hadd recommended lower level of pace being set at 50% VO2max. I did suggest that a lot of base trainers don't appreciate the difference between 70% MHR (equivalent to 50% VO2max) and 70% VO2 max. They're quite happy running at 70%MHR, which is nice and slow, whereas based on MM's analysis of Dudley they should be running at 70% VO2max which is equivalent 82% of MHR. At that sort of pace, which is fairly close to LT of 92% MHR, controling cardiac drift is relevant.
What do you think guys - or am I just talking rubbish?
I think I will need to go and look at detail the relationship between VO2 Max and HR - but there appears to be some sense in what you say -
Does that mean that all those 70% MHR runs I have done for the last 3 months have been in vain to improve ?? In which case the Compleat Idiots guide to HR Training is seriously wrong !?!?
I would be happy to train at 82% MHR but then I would be breathing much heavier (i.e. beyond the recommended conversational pace for slow runs (long or recovery)) ?????
I think we're a bit guilty of allowing the heart rate monitor to rule how we train. We need to be able to develop a feeling for the pace we run at, rather than rely on the HR monitor to tell us. Before they were available, generations of runners got along OK without them.
Obviously you shouldn't run to exhaustion every time you train, but I do think (personal opinion only) that when you've been for a run, you should know about it.
Im a BIG fan of running to feel
But i want to run every day, so isnt keeping it at conversational pace about being ABLE to run every day
Id be walking
so maybe im doing the 82%
time for a max HR test
As Hipps says, it's about being able to run every day. If you look at the paces Hadd suggests he does have 83% runs in there, but the recovery runs are at 70-75%. It's all about compromise. We'd all like to go out and run 85-90% runs all the time, but we'd soon get injured, particularly if pushing up to 60 or 70 miles/week.
As you know, I don't have to scientific knowledge to explain fully how it works but the theory as outlined by Hadd and the application as practised by me and others produces results.
You obviously reach a high standard by doing your tried and trusted methods. I was not reaching the standards I wanted with my methods so applied Hadd's methods. I am running better now than I was (which you may well argue I would have done anyway but I doubt as I had definitely plateaued).
Hadd says it is ONE approach to distance training. It works for many many runners. Other approaches work for other runners. You, MM and others have eloquently explained your reservations with the approach. I have tried to explain its benefits as best I can, but I think we are in danger of making the same points over and over in different ways.
I shall continue to follow the thread with interest and post if I feel I have anything new to add to the discussion, but at present I cannot explain the approach any better than I have tried to already.
Following your training, you haven't been too rigerous about slow running as Pantman, who did huge volumes of slow running. I guess, in your case it was more in between. Make sense?
Susie: I do have views on this, which may not accord with your own. However as BR says, my simply reiterating them isn't going to move the discussion forward. I do recognise however that what suits me, may not be applicable to everybody (anybody!!).
As I understood it, when I first read the major Hadd post on LR, I was at a reasonable standard, and still wanted to race XC etc. last winter. The more I've run since then the more selective I have become about how and why I race, so I can get more benefits out of the training.
Others started from a different level of fitness.
I don't dispute the fact that you have made significant improvements in your race times and that you attribute these improvements to incorporating Hadd's methods into your training approach. Indeed, in my first set of posts when I pointed out that Hadd's interpretation of the data in the Dudley et al., paper was flawed I followed this by stating that "this by no means indicates that base training is necessarily ineffective".
All I was looking for was an admission that Hadd was mistaken when he stated that "And the best way to cause improvements in slow-twitch fibres was to run long and slow at 70% VO2max (adaptation began from as low as 50% VO2max pace). Faster was not better" on the basis of the data in the Dudley et al., paper.
I was just looking for someone, anyone, who follows Hadd's approach to at least entertain the possibility that Hadd incorrectly interpreted published findings.
I think you may be right about 75% - I have seen this figure before in other opinionated HR regimes. I reckon I am at my most comfortable at a mildly short of breath and 75% MHR rate anyway - 70% always feels a bit stinted and below (as you point out) the threshold where we feel like we have been for a run.
That said - I ran 12 miles today at on average (I think) 125 BPM (about 72% MHR for me) in 1.54 and felt pretty good. This compared say to my previous 1/2 marathon best of 1.55 suggests that this long easy run is now just short of my PB for the distance, where prior to controlled HR training I was not seeing any improvement at all - and then I was clearly running at 85 - 90% MHR on all of my runs (long or short).
http://forums.runnersworld.com/thread.jspa?threadID=231165&tstart=0
http://forums.runnersworld.com/thread.jspa?threadID=231109&tstart=0
i wouldnt put it past you;)