Fly on the Wall

For an unmotivated and dreaded run, you did AWESOME with IMPROVEMENTS from last Mon's speed workout. VERY NICE!!! Was that (following the co-workers) a motivation or peer pressure?

As for rude remarks... Hmm, what's with using Garmin for the 200m repeats? Couldn't you think of some other brilliant way to time and measure the repeats? I wouldn't know how. I was thinking may be I'd wear two watches. (OK, was that rude or silly remark or just a comment from dumbo me.)

Great workout Mark. You did great. I have yet to run a real interval workout with my Garmin yet. I still need to figure it all out. I am leary of using it too for the shorter distances too. I do feel better about the longer ones that is for sure. Great job again man.

Man alive ... how am I suppose to find any fault in that workout!! Stink!! Glad that Smooth had my back!! :)

I still don't get how your heart rate is so low. Are you just a freak of nature or is my heart rate too high?? You never did tell me what your resting heart rate was.

Seriously, nice run today!

Do you program the workouts into your garmin?

Great run for not being motivated. Those kinds of runs are rare. Great job getting it done.

Dale

"Was that (following the co-workers) a motivation or peer pressure?" Running with these young ladies is a motivation :)

"I still don't get how your heart rate is so low. Are you just a freak of nature or is my heart rate too high?? You never did tell me what your resting heart rate was." I did, look at Sunday's blog. I will try to check my resting heart rate this week and my max heart rate at my Turkey Trot.

Max heart rate is genetically set and not an indication of fitness. The % of MY max heart rate is an indication of how hard I'M running. Either I'm not working hard enough or my max is lower than yours. What is your max and resting? Generally men have a lower max heart rate than women and older people a lower max heart rate than younger. So I probably have a lower max than you.

I think these are the norms,

Women: 226bpm -age, +/-15 or more

Men: 220bpm -age, +/-15 or more

"Do you program the workouts into your garmin?" I had forgotten I could do that. If I can find my manual or find the time and motivation to look it up on-line, I might try to figure out how. Are you a Garmin workout programing expert?

Nice work out Fly. I like reading your track workouts. They help motivate me. Keep'em up.

I am the programming unexpert. I tried to program Yasso 800s in, but I couldn't get the recovery lap to be a certain time. If anyone ever figures it out please let me know.

I tend to go to my gizmo geek friend for my garmin issues. Jeffc he has really helped me get mine working right for me. I am still a newbie though.

What part of Salt Lake are you in. I'm always looking for running partners and I am guessing by your many posts and your times we might get along splendley. I'm out in Draper most of the time.

Hi Matt, Who'd have thought I'd run into you here? By my "posts" I'm guessing you are referring to that crazy thread and not my running posts. Sometimes I read that other thread and feel a bit saddened and disheartened. Other times I read it and laugh, not a dark cynical laugh but a lighthearted chuckle.

In the spirit of the latter...

I live in a neighborhood that is surrounded by Brigham Young's grave, "the" Church's world headquarters, Temple Square, and the Utah State Capitol. Ironically this neighborhood is now described as "Utah's gayest gayborhood."

Had you suggested we run together last week when I first started reading that other blog thread, I might have thought you were crazy and hesitated. After reading more I am certain you are crazy and have no hesitation about joining you for a run, I would look forward to it!

For better or worse Draper is quite a ways from here. Do you ever find yourself around downtown on Friday or Saturday? (I also run on some Sundays if that works for you.)

Thanks for stopping by, Mark

I believe the main two components of your max HR are aerobic fitness and neural drive. Increased aerobic fitness lowers it, increased neural drive raises it. Your race pace is also controlled by those two, except both improve it as they increase.

Decreased HR at the same pace is possibly good news, but do not get too excited. Aerobic gains, but you will not necessarily cash out on them as much as you hope. Decreased Max HR could be bad news - drop in neural drive with no aerobic capability change, or failure of the nervous system to fully utilize the newly developed aerobic capabilities.

Having said that - most healthy men that cannot break 3:00 in the marathon should be getting excited when their HR drops at the same pace. Your average male has plenty of neural drive to run sub-3:00 and is usually being held back due to the lack of aerobic conditioning. Which is why the blog standard "run easy pace for long enough 6 days a week, do not skip" has produced so many marathon breakthroughs.

Wow! I have an undergraduate degree in biology and am a doctor of optometry, meaning I have taken a lot of physiology and other science courses, and I had to read that 5 times before I kind of got it. You must be a genious physiology guy Sasha. It was very interesting to read though. I'm glad you posted it.

Thank you for the input Sasha. I am a self taught/ self coached runner with no physiology or sports background to speak of. I didn't start running til I was 35. Thus I am always hoping to learn more.

"...max HR... Increased aerobic fitness lowers it, increased neural drive raises it." But I have read that max heart rate can not be changed with training. How and why do you believe aerobic fitness changes max HR?

Can one, and if so how, increase neural drive through training? Also how much of neural drive is inherent to an individual/ how much of it is a "gift of God?"

Given constant or increasing aerobic training, do you believe max HR declines with age?

"run easy pace for long enough 6 days a week, do not skip" To run my marathon PR, 3:08 at St. George last year, I used Pfitzinger's 18 week, 70 miles per week or less (6 days a week) training program. I felt like I was getting in enough miles but didn't have the speed to go sub 3. (This year I ran the Slam and thus spent a lot of time recovering between races.) So my plan this year was to do more speed work and shorter races while training for a half (Painters). Then either another 1/2 or full in spring followed by hard training for St. George using the 70 mile, 18 week program with overall faster paces and/or more speed work. ANY THOUGHTS or RECOMMENDATIONS?

Again thank you for the comments. And thanks for setting up this site.

Fly on the Wall

My max HR in 2000 was 191, best marathon 2:35:46 on TOU course, old Draper Days 5 K 15:59, HR at marathon pace around 160. By 2004 it dropped to 172, best marathon was 2:24:47 (St. George), TOU course 2:27:46, old Draper Days 5K 15:37, HR at marathon pace 157. A slight loss of aerobic fitness allowed me to hit HR of 175 at the top of the hill in Strider's 5 K in 2006, the time was 17:06, probably worth 16:00-16:10 in Draper Days. I have not seen it higher since, but not much lower. I can still hit 172 on a good day. I would agree that it would be difficult, although not impossible, to raise max HR with training, but it is very easy to lower it.

My resting HR has always been 48 since teenage years (I am now 35). I can get my heart to hit as low as 44 for a minute with a trick - very light exercise for 30 seconds, then wait about 45 seconds or so and count right then. But it is never below 48 for any significant period of time.

Given the same level of aerobic conditioning, or even more relaxed constraint - given the aerobic conditioning is good enough not to be a limiting factor of running performance in an all out mile, Max HR declines with the loss of the neural drive, which eventually happens as you age.

Neural drive responds to training some, but not nearly as well as aerobic conditioning. To develop it you need to run fast. Hill sprints, interval work, even tempo runs help. You also need to sleep well, and avoid stress. The trick to training the neural drive is that when you reach a nervous system overload, the symptoms are very difficult to notice.

There are also different aspects of neural drive, just like with the muscle fiber itself (fast-twicth/slow-twitch). There is explosive power aspect, and there is sustained power aspect. It is easy to mistake the lack of sustained neural drive capability for the lack of aerobic conditioning. The only difference you'll see is aerobically unconditioned runner during interval work will have his HR very high for a while after the interval, while the neurally weak (endurance wise) runner will have his HR drop very fast, but still will not be able to hit a fast time on the next interval. The aerobically weak runner will run faster if you give him a longer recovery, while the neurally weak runner will not.

To see if your problem is aerobic conditioning or neural drive run an all out 100, 200, 400, 800, mile, and 5 K, and post the times. Do not do it on the same day, of course, except maybe for 100 and 200. Wear an HRM during the mile and the 5 K and record the patterns.

I would, however, guess, that your aerobic conditioning is still not where it should be. If you did 70 miles a week of easy running for a couple of years with no off-season, it would get there.