Friday 2 March 2012

Third 2400 test

23 February 2012
1.49m - 13:38(9:09/m) - 136bpm avge
1.49m - 12:19(8:15/m) - 145bpm avge
1.49m - 11:00(7:23/m) - 154bpm avge
1.49m - 10:00(6:42/m) - 165bpm avge
1.49m - 9:13(6:11/m) - 171bpm avge

Things are still moving in the right direction, although the pace of the 135bpm effort stubbornly remains the same as it has since I began Hadd. Additionally, the differential between 145 and 155bpm remains more than fifty seconds. I have concluded that both of these stubborn trends indicate that I probably need to increase the effort on my sub LT runs from 80 to 82% MHR.
My next 2400 hundred test will hopefully demonstrate the efficacy of increasing the sub LT effort and will play a significant part in my decision to do a spring marathon or not and also the pace at which I will race the Nippy Nor'easter at the end of March. The long term trends are quite pleasing and if I can continue to take about six second per mile off my 165 and 175 efforts every five or so weeks I will be quite happy. Interestingly I struggled to get the HR up to 175 on the final 2400m effort. I also felt that the 165bpm effort was more sustainable than it has been; I felt that I could have kept going at that effort for at least ten miles while this effort in December felt more like 10K pace. 

3 comments:

Grellan said...

It's funny how your form at the higher HRs is improving compared to the more aerobic efforts. Is your training geared more towards the threshold side of things? Have you completed any race pace training for the Half at the end of the month?

Westley said...

Quite the opposite Grellan. The whole basis of Hadd is to develop a really strong aerobic base with two key workouts a week at sub lactate threshold to push your aerobic base to a higher level and everything else really easy effort. These two key workouts are two ten mile runs at 80-82% MHR. I began with 80% runs but no longer see any HR drift as they near the end and they feel quite comfortable; consequently, since the end of last week I moved the sub LT efforts to 82% MHR that I am hoping will bring significant gains across all effort levels.

@SamWomack said...

I haven't totally committed to using the "Hadd formula" but I think I can help you with the Slow Times at Low HR because I notice this as well in my Training. My MaxHR is in the 180s (I can't get a good calculation because I seem to be "afraid" to push into these boundaries for whatever reason) so I should be training around 135HR for my Easy days. However, I find it really hard to run that slow and I can't seem to keep the HR that low and therein lies the probably I think. We aren't truly training at these "intensities" and we aren't learning to make these "intensities" improve. On Friday I went out to a trail to do a run, and I didn't anticipate turning it into a workout but I did. I ran at 160HR for 7 Miles (with even splits) and it felt really good. However, I wanted to stay @ 135HR this morning and I just couldn't do it (first 9 miles average was 145HR) and then I decided to run the last 4 miles Hard at 155HR and it felt good.

Hadd says it in his "formula", in order to improve running at slower intensities we have to run at the lower HR more often and then with patience we will improve our speed at those HRs as well as improving speed at the Higher end of the scale, so it seems Patience is the Key as well as truly keeping a run at the lower HR...but like I said, I'm failing to do this myself...I hope this makes sense as soon as a post this..