I was reading a running book and it talked about assessing your current level of fitness/raceability. The idea behind it is to do an assessment every 4 weeks or so. You take your current HM pace, run 20-30 min at that pace after a thorough warm up, and note your HR for that pace at that time. The idea is that over a 3-4 week period, with consistent training, you should be able to run at the same HR but at a faster speed. I understand this to be HR based training, but the twist on this is that you only do this once a month or even every 6 weeks. The rest of the training time is spent at certain paces. So, you don't base your workouts on HR, just in the assessment. So, I should be able to take my results from today and in 4-6 weeks, do another assessment and have it show me running at the same HR, but at a faster pace. This way, I know my body is becoming more fit, etc.
So, I went to the track today, warmed up for about .5 mi, then ran for about 20 mins, targeting 9:15 or so for my pace. I was faster than I probably should have been (avg 8:55 pace). My HR was 157 for the first mile, and 159 for the second, averaging 158. So, it looks like the high 150s is where I'm at with my HR at my HM pace. So, that's what I'll need to run at in a month or so when I do another assessment. My understanding is that when I do the assessments from now on, I use that 158 HR average and then just run for 20-30 mins at that HR and then check the pace and it should be faster, showing an improvement.
I know Flat records his HR (usually just "low," not the actual numbers), but I wasn't sure if anyone else trains by HR. I don't plan to, but this assessment was an interesting exercise. Here's why:
The day before, I did run fairly hard, but I was surprised my HR was so high for this run at that pace and that my body felt to fatigued after just 2-3 miles at that pace. I know my stride length shortened, but I kept a pretty high cadence. The run started out feeling "awkward" again, but after a mile or so, I was feeling my stride again. Keeping the pace slower was hard since my body wanted to go faster, but I kept holding it back. I know it wants to go faster, but I don't think I can hold a 8:00 or better at HM distance, so I am trying to keep my body from running faster in my runs and focusing on keeping a consistent pace through longer runs.
I'm guessing my HR was a little elevated due to the run the day before. Is this possible? I know I was more fatigued, but would my HR be high(er) due to a harder run the day before? Also, after last week's 3 miles, anything I did this week was going to be a lot higher than last week, so I shouldn't be too surprised that I'm tiring easier, I suppose. | 