Alot of the Ironman plans use Heart Rate (HR) Based Training. I ignored it the first time I trained and just trained by how I felt. I finished my race and felt good about it, but I was slow. So many people have talked about the benefit of HR training that I decided this year, I was going to try this type of training. Rather than try to guess my true max HR, I opted to get a VO2 max test done instead. I did this for 3 reasons: 1) I wanted to know how well I do with oxygen utilization. 2) I wanted to know my max HR. 3) I wanted to know my LT, better known as lactate thershold.
So, sometime in mid April I went to Max Sports Medicine to get this test done. I showed up early on a Tuesday morning. You have to "rest" the day before and the day of so that you are not tired for the test. The staff there was great and Dr. Devor guides you through the test very easily. You have to wear a mask that measures your breathing and the test is primarily done on a treadmill. You start at a walking pace and are incremented up to higher speeds every 60-90 seconds. Once you hit your tempo pace, which we predetermined based on what I perceived as my tempo pace at the start of the test, then the treadmill is slowly elevated by 1-2 degrees. This also happened about every 60-90 seconds. They basicically do this until you decide you are done or can't do it anymore. I made it up to a 10% grade, I don't remember now what my speed was on the treadmill. Total test took just a little over 10 minutes.
I was fortunate as I was the only one Dr. Devor saw that day, so I was able to meet with him right after to go over my results and get his suggestions. From what I understand, he often doesn't meet with people until 2-3 weeks after their test and it is with a group of 3-4 people. So I was actually a little disappointed in my results. My VO2 max is 42. This isn't terrible, as Dr. Devor put it, it is actually high if you compare it to the general population of women my same age, which is avg of 38. However, I am used to hearing the VO2 max numbers of alot of my friends, which are a unique group of endurance athletes. Compared to them this is very low. My max HR was 182 bpm. I actually thought it would be higher than this. Again some disappointment. My LT is around 151bpm. Based on max heart rate, Dr. Devor then came up with intervals/zones of training for me.
They are as follows:
1) Zone 1: (108-121) This is the active recovery zone and also low intensity used to establish a cardiovascular base.
2) Zone 2: (121-135) This is where the majority of the building phase of IM training should be, it is used to improve overall conditioning and endurance.
3) Zone 3: (135-151 ) Tempo Pace/Latcic Acid Tolerance, this is a higher intensity zone that starts to add an anaerobic component to training.
4) Zone 4: (151-169) Interval Training, this is a high intensity zone used primarily for speedwork training. Needs to include full rest breaks in between workouts to avoid overtraining.
5) Zone 5: (169-182) This is the highest intensity training zone and reserved for use in very hard interval training.
So far doing this type of training has been very challenging for me. I have had to slow way down on my long slow runs (lsr) and my recovery runs. I often have to take walking intervals during these runs just to keep my HR below 135. I feel like I am barely above a walk on these runs and think that people have to wonder what I am trying to do on these runs. I am not even sure what pace group to run with this Saturday when I rejoin MIT. I don't have a garmin that monitors pace/speed. I only have a HR monitor so I really don't have much idea of what pace I have been running. I am going to start with the 11:30 pace group, but suspect I will likely end up dropping back to the 12:00 group. For those that know me, this is a significant decrease in pace to what I normally do. For the past year and a half, I have been helping to pace the 10:30 group (I also happen to know that my HR was generally in the 150-160 range with these runs, apparently I had been doing my LSR in my zone 4)! On the flip side, my quality workouts have felt easy. The past two weeks I have been able to do a couple of runs with some zone 4 intervals, they have almost felt too easy and I have had to be careful not to go up into zone 5 with these workouts! I have also noticed I haven't been nearly as tired after my workouts. The first year I trained, I was sleeping at least 8 hours a night and I was often taking naps during the day after some of my workouts. I really haven't felt like I have had to do this so far, even with the increase in training over the past month or so. At this point I am going to try to be patient and give this a shot, but it really is frustrating, especially on my slower workouts...
No comments:
Post a Comment