HADD Training Method

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  • Dr.DanDr.Dan ✭✭✭
    edited July 2017
    >>What's was your HR at 8/m at LT? 

    I've done 3x10.6 miles subLT so far in the last 3 weeks...

    7:48/mi 75.7% maxHR
    7:52/mi 72.4% maxHR
    7:51/mi 73.5% maxHR

    Meanwhile the long runs in the last 3 weeks have been:

    16 miles at 8:23/mi 70.7% maxHR
    18 miles at 8:18/mi 71.3% maxHR
    20 miles at 8:26/mi 70.2% maxHR

    In April this year, I had a LT test carried out in a sports science lab and it was predicted to be 8:02 min/mi. I was running at 73.3% maxHR  at this point of the test. My lactate turn point, aka "tempo pace", came out as 6:53/mi when I was at 80% maxHR. The HRs will be lower than in a race as much less time is spent at each speed/effort. For example, in the same month at ran a 10 mi race at 6:52/mi (at 83% maxH), and the London marathon at 8:01/mi (78% maxHR). But all this was in the same month so you can see how closely LT predicts MP, while LTP predicts 10miP.

    You can also see that 83%, being my 10mi av HR, is way way beyond my marathon HR! I ran a 5K at 6:24mi and 87% maxHR the month before ... and I ran a hadd subLT session at 7:24/mi and 81.3% maxHR. In the marathon itself, my pace remained constant, although it got very very tough in the last 10K:

    sub 75% maxHR for 1st 5miles
    77% 5-10  miles
    77% 10-15 miles
    79% 15-20 miles
    81% 20-26.2 miles

    So the take home message for me is that you need to know your actual LT pace and then do your subLT session at that pace. The HR that comes out is your ILTHR ... i.e. initial lactate threshold heart rate which really is at the lower end of LT. For me hadd's off-the-shelf HR estimations do not work and consequently I have been doing his ILTHR runs too hard.
  • Dr.DanDr.Dan ✭✭✭
    Everyone on their holidays? :p

    Sunday was 20 miles at 8:26/mi and 70% maxHR. Today was 10.6 miles at 7:50/mi ... same route, distance and pace as last week but 9 bpm higher heart rate. Mrs Dan was feeling rough this morning so I wonder whether something is on the way for me... alternatively, perhaps my type I fibers are still fried from Sunday's 20 so I ended up working more type IIa than usual? Either way, it's 10.6@MP run number 4 in the bag.
  • Interesting that you quote the maximum HR and not the average HR? 
    Is'nt 75% LT 
  • Dr.DanDr.Dan ✭✭✭
    I am quoting average HR as a percentage of my max HR (I tend to put "maxHR" as some folk quote percentage of "working HR", although not in hadd land).

    LT is the point at which you will start to increase blood lactate levels - it will happen at different %maxHR values for different people. Hadd's approach is to get LT shifted so that you don't reach it until higher %maxHR. A well trained marathon runner may be able to run at 85% maxHR ...whereas I am considerably less adapted!
  • Thanks Dan for those interesting details.
    Did my ultra on Saturday/Sunday...  but got a DNF.  Physically, the preparation was good enough... I could have got to 75m on this tough course. But, broadly speaking, it was navigation through the day that sapped away at me and ultimately, I found myself on a country lane on my own, having run over 22hrs... it's 3.10am and I couldn't work out where on the map I was.  I was about 6.5miles from the finish when I decided I was completely lost and needed to stop and walk back to a village a few miles back.  Twenty minutes later, I found that I had actually been on the right road after all... but by then, it was too late to make the cut offs and my energy was gone.  So a bit gutting, but really happy with my effort. Now to decide how to recover.
  • Cheers for the reply Dan, I was just double checking.

    Fair play Northender, that sounds like hell! 
  • Dr.DanDr.Dan ✭✭✭
    Northender... grim stuff but it at least shows you are in great shape! I can't comprehend such distances!
  • Sol2Sol2 ✭✭✭
    edited August 2017
    Yes, on holidays! You know how things get knocked out of whack! 

    Northender, a 75 mile ultra? Utter madness! You kept going for 22 hours - that is unbelievable. I couldn't fathom going on for so long. But to become disorientated at 3 am on a deserted country road would be quite understandable, but at a measly 6 miles from the finish is a bummer! I'd love to hear more details. 

    Dr Dan, I get what you're saying about LT and LTP. Here's a quote from Hadd:

    "Those whom I have advised online for some years will know that the training model I use mandates two "thresholds". Up until very recently I referred to these as Aerobic Threshold (AeT) and Anaerobic Threshold (AnT). Given that this terminology is now recognised to be both inaccurate and misleading, in line with the literature I now use the (respective) terms Lactate Threshold (LT) and Lactate Turnpoint (LTP). The former (LT) corresponds extremely well (and is useful) with training for marathon performance, while the Lactate Turnpoint correlates betterwith MaxLaSS (Maximum Lactate Steady State) and thus HM and 10k performances."

    Read more:http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=2375989&page=1#ixzz4oaPrZoxG

    Well, once you're comfortable running at 73% for an hour and you feel capable of repeating it, the next step would be to move to 75%.  Build to an hour, get comfortable at it, then advance to 5bpm higher. Etc. 

    Correction - a well trained runner should be able to run a marathon at an average HR of 90%. If you continue reading Hadd after that quote, he says it there. 

    Another question: how many 20 milers?! How long do they take you? How long does it take you to recover from them? Hadd advises against going over 2.5 hours and even then once every fourth week. 

    On Friday I moved up to 4x1 mile at 88%. (As the second workout of last week, after having done 3x20 minutes at 85% on Tuesday.) If you had similar weather to me here, it had been raining cats and dogs the entire day - and continued throughout.... Due to the weather, I decided not to do it on an off-road trail loop, but changed to a local park instead. This park is not ideal anyway, because it's quite hilly and on tarmac (with some rough patches thrown in), but I really wanted to get this workout done! As it turned out, there were low-lying areas just covered in ankle-deep water and other sections of the path with rivers coursing over them! I pushed on and did it... I didn't quite reach the desired HR, nor the expected speed, but I'm sure that the workout still had a decent training effect. I think I was drier in the shower afterwards! 
  • Dr.DanDr.Dan ✭✭✭
    Glad ro read hadd uses LT and LTP in the conventional manner. :)

    What HR would you plan to run a marathon at? Do you believe you're genuinely subLT at 88%?

    90% :o ... perhaps but I am yet to come across such a well trained runner! One problem with following hadd training is that I believe he rarely dealt with average runners. They were all speed merchants.

    Is hadd suggesting not to run more than 2.5 hours in marathon prep ... or just when in base phase? Mine take about 2:50 and I will certainly be running a few more ...and following them up with a subLT 10 miler 2 days afterwards.
  • Hi Dr.Dan.

    I have been lurking on this thread for a while, and reading with great interest.

    I have been following the MAF approach for the past year or so and have been monitoring heart rate data.

    This link to my manchester marathon race in April of this year might throw some more light on Lactate threshold.

    https://www.endomondo.com/users/25716198/workouts/898757949


    My average heart rate was 163 which is around 90% of my max heart rate. I am certainly no speed merchant!!

  • Dr.DanDr.Dan ✭✭✭
    Hi Ralph - thanks for joining in! And you are speedier than me! How confident are you that your max HR is correct? And if you can run a marathon at 90%, what do you average at HM, 10k and 5k (and at what paces?)? 
  • No probs Dan. Not 100% confident that my max Hr rate is correct as i haven't done a proper max heart rate test as it just didn't fit it with my low heart rate training.
    I just used the 180 figure which i don't think is that far away to be honest.

    I agree though that i should prioratise a max hr test as i am doing some faster training now.
    My HM pb is 1.32 with an ave hr of 163! again. This was from Jan this year and i felt like there was more in the tank as the last few miles were sub 7 no problem.

    Unfortunately i have no hr data for 10k and 5k but have pb's of 40.36 (2016) and 19.05 (2011)
  • Dr.DanDr.Dan ✭✭✭
    I suspect your maxHR is 190+ bpm!  ;)
  • I would be surprised, but i suppose it is possible. I need to do some 5k's and really go for it, that will give me some much needed hr data for the shorter distance.
    Just finding the time as my training is geared to wards slow commuter plods and longer runs.
    Out of interest my MAF pace is down to around 7.40 -7.45 (hr 142)
  • Dr.DanDr.Dan ✭✭✭
    Tricky to hit maxHR on a 5K ... too much fatigue unless you go for a burn-out between 1-2K. The highest HR (peak not average) I have hit on a 5K over the last year is 96% of the maxHR I managed in a VO2max test in the lab. And that was a good day and a hard-fought race ... usually I don't get it that high.

    So putting bpm numbers on it ... my tested maxHR is 181 bpm, which I guess is what you think yours is, yet I have only hit 173 bpm in an all-out 5K race (average was 163 bpm). Your data says you averaged 163 in a marathon and suggests you hit a max of 177 bpm ... that's equivalent/higher than one of my hardest 5K races of the year (20:01)!! By comparison, I averaged 146 bpm in my last HM (94 min, May '16) and 137 bpm in my last marathon (3:30:14, April '17). So, I really can't equate those numbers with yours, other than by assuming your maxHR is somewhere in the 190s.
  • Dr.DanDr.Dan ✭✭✭
    20:08 at parkrun ... average 155 bpm.

    3:49 141 avHR /152 maxHR 
    4:05 155/157
    4:06 158/160
    4:01 159/163
    4:07 163/166
  • Nice to see another decent Parkrun DR Dan.
    Are you training for the Chester Marathon? Any other races beforehand?
    Does anyone have any big races coming up?

    I am finally 100% back into training after taking 10 weeks since the MK Marathon to rid myself of injury and niggles. Three visits to the Physio and new exercises done on a daily basis have helped, along with upping foam rolling from once to twice a week. 
    So after frustratingly only running 3 or 4 times a week, I am finally back to running 5 days a week at last.
    I have become a little bored of LT pace though so instead will be doing one session a week at 8:30 pace. I hope to unleash 8:30 pace in a 10 mile race in September if I can get the time off work. With a PB set as a few seconds north of 90 mins, I am hoping to take 5 mins off it with a strict weight loss strategy coming into affect and already shifting 4lb.

    I will still be Hadding on Easy and Recovery runs, along with alternating my long runs between road running Hadding and trail runs where keeping under a required heartrate is not possible thanks to the hills. 
    Monthly miles improving gradually May 71, June 84 and July 105.
  • Dr.DanDr.Dan ✭✭✭
    All sounding good Martyn!

    I have a 1 mile tack race later this month and a flat half marathon 4 weeks before Chester. Will have to rely on parkrunning to get me through those as not intending any specific sessions.

    22 miles this morning at 8:27/mi and average of 70% max HR.



  • 1 mile flat will hurt!!! How many weeks are you away from the marathon, it's nice and early to already have a 22 miler in the bank.
  • Dr.DanDr.Dan ✭✭✭
    edited August 2017
    9 weeks to go!  :o

    Yep 1 mile is pure pain :s but it's one of our 10 club league races of which you must do 6 ... and I have missed too many already!
  • Sol2...  yes, it's mad! Never thought I'd do anything like it. You have to throw in that 60 of the miles were off road including some pretty tough terrain, with 8300 feet of climb. 
    But other people had advised me that it was all in the head.  And indeed my average mileage for the year is about 28mpw... and that is also the average over the last 10-12 weeks too (even though the recent 2-3 months have seen that mileage spread over longer times/ slower tougher runs.)   So it can be done.
  • Sol2Sol2 ✭✭✭
    edited August 2017
    I've let it slip again and the posts just pile up...  :)

    Dr Dan, when I reach the marathon I'll have to evaluate then what I'm capable of, but I certainly hope that my HRmarathon will be up there. BTW, having checked again, Hadd says HRmarathon is 87-89% on average. 

    Am I currently SubLT at 88%? I don't know for sure but I think so, or around there. It's tough, but that may merely be because it was my first at that intensity. 85% sure is sub LT. 

    Hadd said several times that the long runs should cycle 1:45, 2:00, 2:15 and 2:30.  Even though he was talking about base phase, I think it applies to marathon training too, but I won't bet on it. Incidentally, Daniels does say not to go over 2:30 even in marathon training and even when the expected marathon time will be long. I believe John Kellogg also had this position. 

    Welcome, Ralph!  Hope to hear more of you. Can you explain a little about MAF? 

    Martyn, glad to hear that your niggles have cleared up. Seriously, though, bored of the SubLT pace!? What is your 70% pace and your 80% pace? Are they both stable HRs till the end? Can you keep up 80% for an hour? 

    Northender, at such low weekly mileage, the ultra must have hurt! I wouldn't like to go through that! 

    My week saw 62 miles, in 8 hrs 25 mins. This included one SubLT 3x3 miles at 85% (feeling more comfortable than last week). One 9 mile 75% run - a first, as I'm always at 70%! And a long run, 17 miles including 3x3 miles at 82%, which, strangely, was at the same pace as 85%... All else was at 70%.

    Coming up for me is a club 5k race in 2 weeks, followed 2 weeks later by a club 10k. Half marathon will be in November. Nothing else for this year. I'm concentrating on completing Hadd's Phase 1.
  • I ran the Paris marathon in April this year and I really struggled with the training. Looking at this, I spent way too much time at a middle pace which I couldn't maintain over the days, weeks and months of training. I got cramp on the day of the marathon due to dehydration around 23km in so my final time was 5:18, just over an hour longer than my target time.

    Now I want to do another marathon in 8-9 months time, but in the meantime I want to improve my sprint fitness - now the marathon training is over I've started to get back into tennis and football and am really struggling, running out of breath and not recovering quickly enough.

    Does this HAAD method work at all mixing in faster runs, or should you only be going after longer, slow runs this far away from your race? If i start running more regularly again with say 2 interval/hill sprint runs a week and 2 longer slow runs am I going to get the benefits to my marathon pace or not? What if i went for 3 sprints/intervals a week to try to improve on my 5K and 10K PB's with just 1 longer run on a Sunday?
  • Hey Sol2, I have a small two month window to now train and go for a PB before a change of job and lifestyle change, which will somewhat cloud how much I can train and race so will give this a good go.
    I've spent 14 months Hadding so just fancied a change tbh so have gone back to the old thinking adage of if you want to run at a particular race pace, you must train at that pace!

    My local terrain has constant lumps and bumps which raises my HR, although I would assume my HR would have a small rise towards the end of a 10M run at the moment. 

    I've only actually done one road run of any length in the last 4 weeks which was 12 miles @12:25 and 70% average HR. All other long runs each week have been trail runs on very hilly terrain ranging between 8 and 11 miles.
    Depending on the weather, my shorter runs have been anywhere between 11:10 and 12:10 pace depending on the heat, all under 70% HR. I've not done any LT runs since mid June, but it was at 9:45 when I last did one.
    I've read many on Hadd who have ventured away, only to get injured and return to Hadd so I am aware of the risks.
     I've recently come to the conclusion that many long distance running standards do not seem to of improved as much as most would of expected in the last 30 years given the technology improvements in running gear,  trainers, HR, wicking material etc which could be down to not enough hard miles?
    Most people will also consume more naughty food which is more easily available nowadays such as takeaways in comparison to 30 years ago when a more stable diet was consumed and obesity was less of a problem.
    I will still be lurking and reading this great thread though.   
  • Dr.DanDr.Dan ✭✭✭
    Sol - I guess you won't know the answers until you run a marathon ... or do a proper LT threshold test. SubLT is pretty gentle... it has to be given it's a pace you can run for 20+ miles! I now know after doing 8 marathons, and having followed hadd's approach for some, that my 80, 83 and 85% subLT runs were well above my actual marathon pace and well above LT.

    I think you can get away with shorter long runs IF you build accumulated fatigue (like the Hanson approach) or do very high weekly mileage. In these cases you start your long run in a pretty fatigued state. I do this to some extent as I go all out at parkrun 22 hours before my long run, to build fatigue and empty glycogen stores ...and also so eat no carbs inbetween these two runs. Last year I did shorter long runs but only because I rroutinely ran 8+ miles 15 hours earlier... that marathon went ok.

    However, for me there is nothing quite like The 20+ mile run to get those deep down muscle fibres to come to the table.

    The proof that I am not overdoing my long Sunday runs is that my 10.6 mile Tues "marathon pace/subLT' runs have been spot on.

  • Dr.DanDr.Dan ✭✭✭
    Off work so today's 5th subLT was slightly shorter than the 1st 4 but still on the canal towpath. 10.3 miles at 7:49/mi and 73%maxHR.
  • Hi discomfort,  I'm not a Hadd expert but have read through a lot of his stuff.  I think there has been quite some misreporting at times... and I think it's ok to put some fast stuff in the mix - especially if it keeps you motivated and happy.
    His classical writing involves him training a previously elite athlete who had become relatively unfit. He extols the idea that we should all spend a long time - perhaps 20 weeks - building an aerobic base, not running ANY fast/hard training stuff. And only after that start introducing some speed work. I've seen some people suggest that you undo the good work if you do to hill/sprint work, but I think it's pretty clear that there is no detriment in that other than it saps your energy and time that you could use for developing that aerobic base - so it slows your progress. 

    3 slow runs and one fast one sounds good.  2 slow and 2 fast sounds pretty 'normal' training - not really hadd base-building. It would be just normal balanced training for someone who wants to be a runner but also play football or other sprint sports. Your idea of just one long run a week and 3 intense ones really is a million miles from Hadd's training principle... and anyway, I wouldn't recommend that balance for any runner.
    I'd say that if you really want to do 3 intense sessions, you should be having AT LEAST 2 slower runs to balance it a little...You ask if 'this hadding' thing would work... as part of an intense programme for improving your sprint fitness... well, yes. Long slow runs are an absolutely essential part of such training. 
    So if you do do 4 sessions a week, I really recommend that 2 are slow. And if you want to concentrate on other sports for the summer, that's fine. But IF a spring marathon becomes a bit more of a priority, I'd recommend having your fun up to September, then get about 12 weeks of slow 'Hadd-like' training to put loads of energy and focus onto building that aerobic base, then pick up a marathon training programme.

    Sorry if that rambles a bit. I haven't got time to edit it down.  Good luck

  • Greetings all,
    I'm more of a 10k runner than marathoner, but am keen on using Hadd-like principles to raise my LT (or possibly LTP/MLSS) in order to get my 10k time down below 40mins (currently circa 42 mins).
    The trouble is, and I wonder if others have found this: running sufficiently high mileage at 'easy' (i.e. sub-LT) pace (e.g. <145HR assuming c. 200 HRmax) paces seems to take a surprisingly high toll on my body, such that I normally end up injured and restarting months later, and never really getting the gains that 20-30weeks solid work should yield. I actually do some triathlon, so need to spend some of my weekly exercise hours on the bike and in the pool, but any mileage 25mpw (even if wholly at 140s/150s HR) and I end up with overloaded/tight calfs and general fatigue... (i even had a stress fracture in my pubic ramus 18mths ago, although i had added tempo runs by then). So in summary, does anyone else find the slow running at 'easy' pace isn't necessarily 'easy' on the body (compared with similar hours per week in a more traditional LSR, tempo, intervals and recovery)? Even when advancing just 10% per week, and doing all I can to avoid overdoing it too quickly, it seems my body just isn't happy with 50mpw. Hadd suggests if you aren't succeeding, you either aren't running enough miles, or running the right miles too quickly... so when targeting a <40' 10k, what sort of weekly mileage can I get away with at the bottom end? And once i get to that weekly mileage, how should the Hadd rules (e.g. the "If your HRmax is 193+...." part towards the end) be adjusted to target 40' for a 10k race distance, rather than full marathon distance?
    Many thanks for anyone's thoughts.
    John
  • I guess in other words, I am asking how could Hadd’s (largely marathon distance-based philosophy and program) be altered for a 10k race target, for someone unable to put in the >50mpw due to either: i) being a triathlete, and needing to fit in swim/bike meters/miles ; ii) being prone to overuse injury, even at 70% HRmax running ; iii) not having time due to work/family etc. (I am a mixture of all three). Perhaps the answer is "not at all, it really only works for marathoners and needs >50mpw for it to work", but I'd love to hear other's views. Most 10k training advice I see emphasizes focus on 'tempo'-style efforts at or just below target 10k race pace for increasing amounts of time...specifically what Hadd advises AGAINST.
  • Sorry for the late reply Dr.Dan, been away on holiday...
    From your superb explanation i can see that i might well be/have been underestimating my max heart rate.
    To put into perspective and also to answer Sol2 question about MAF pace.

    I completed all my training runs for the manchester marathon below a heart rate of 142, apart from a raced half-marathon, 10k and a 20 miler. I was running over 50 miles a week with a max week of 85, so i was putting in more miles than i have ever done. I have tried to keep this going in prep for Snowdon in october but have started to put in a few faster miles as well.

    The MAF pace refers to pace at a heart rate of around 140-142bpm. It is a method devised my Dr. Phil maffetone. For me it seems that i have just never run enough!!


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