Some people hate any HR discussion, so careful where you tread.

Seriously, though....check out the 20 page basebuilding thread started by leitnerj.

I can tell you that mid 140's would be a good start, but there is more to it than that, especially if you low max HR.

Every heart zone but the couch HR. Resist the couch!

quote:<HR>

BTW I have logged over 7000 miles on my HR monitor. There isn't anything magical about it. It just gives you feedback so you can slow down. When you slow down you can run more miles and then improve. The problem I had was that I was running 20-25 miles a week at a 1/2 marathon pace effort all the time. I didn't know better so it seemed normal to me.

<HR>

I've started to realize that this is what I'm doing, without meaning to (I run about 50 km/30 miles a week). It's a pace that comes naturally to me. Will I actually improve my speed overall if I slow down?

I do most of my "easy" pace running between 5:30-5:45 minutes per kilometre. My half marathon pace (in October) was 5:23. According to that table, my VDOT would be about 40. My last race was a 10k a few weeks ago.

I'm comfortable at my current pace, although according to the chart (and the McMillan calculator) it is too fast. But if slowing it down will actually make me faster, then I'm willing to try!

Are the ideal training paces that the calculator gives intended make you faster, or are those just to maintain the current level of fitness?

http://This message has been edited by vprunner (edited Nov-21-2007).

quote:<HR>Originally posted by vprunner:

Are the ideal training paces that the calculator gives intended make you faster, or are those just to maintain the current level of fitness?
<HR>

The paces reflect your current fitness level. You can increase the stress to your system and as a result adapt and improve by increasing the frequency and duration that you expose yourself to these paces (intensities). What frequency, duration you should run at which intensity and how you should measure this (miles/time, feel/pace/heart rate) presents about 90% of what we argue about here. The rest is whether it's OK to wear your iPod when training or in a race.

The Maffetone thread advocates (***for basebuilding only) all low intensity where intensity is measured using heart rate and low intensity is defined as a heart rate less than 220-age bpm.

Pfitzinger, McMillan, Daniels, etc. all use the same intensity descriptors -- VO2max, LT, recovery, easy, and long. They offer both pace as the measure (most commonly used) and heart rate (less commonly used). For instance, Pfitz's book (from memory) call 73-83% max heart rate as a long run and <75% maxHR as recovery. Pfitz measures duration in miles. Daniels uses time for the most part (sometimes he'll say something like 2.5 hours or 20 miles, whichever is less).

John L Parker's "Heart Monitor Training for the Complete Idiot" has schedule that look a lot like Pfitz et al, but uses heart rate (% heart rate reserve) exclusive as the measure of intensity.

Lydiard (from what I gather -- I'm not expert!) described intensity by feel - 1/4 effort, 1/2 effort, 3/4 effort, "pleasantly tired," etc.

quote:<HR>Originally posted by leitnerj:
You mean 180-age +/- n*5, based on fitness, injuries, medications,
and so forth.

<HR>

Right. Sorry. -- didn't mean to add to the confusion!

Ya whenever I run I just run at my normal pace. I don't speed up or slow down for any specific situations. It's the same speed I would run if I were doing a race of any kind I suppose. I just signed up for a Half Marathon in just over a month from now. It'll be my first race ever of any distance.

My pace is always very close to 5:30 / KM when I run, and I usually just run 10 - 15 KM each time i'm out there. When i'm done, i'm not tired at all and my breathing is just normal so it seems to be a good pace for me.

I'll try out my heart rate monitor today on a run and see where i'm at. I hope it's in that 140 range people were saying. If it's not, i'll report back here