Friday, March 21, 2008

Friday MAF test.

I feel very rested.. funny how not running will do that. My legs immediately felt good so I decided to do a HR/ pace MAF test. This included the warm-up: 5 miles in 30:15. The first mile was 6:35 then I stopped paying attention to mile splits and just enjoyed hauling ass while jogging ;) I did note one of my 1/2 mile splits mid-way through in 2:50 (5:40 mile pace). HR averaged 146 and maxed out at 155.
I played this song over and over today during my run... sometimes I get caught in certain song lyrics and I don't want to leave them. This song made me feel completely relaxed and thoughtless.. the run came very easy to me, no effort at all.




Is anyone interested in a group run on Sunday? Niwot High School track at 10:00am.. Here's a link to the map.

12 comments:

Matt said...

Tim,
With MAF, is the treadmill legitimate training? I'm mixing it up outside/inside, but the mill seems good because the runs are very solid.

Cool song.

Lucho said...

Matt- I would tell you to look at your MAF on the treadmill as just that. It is what you can do on the treadmill. If you're MAF tests say X:XX pace per mile then be cautious about assuming this will be the same outside. What you will see though is improvement or digression of fitness which really is the main point of the tests- so in that regard don't worry about it. Once the weather gets better I would say to get outside for a majority of your miles because there are some small differences between the physiology of the two.

Matt said...

One more thing, I promise (for now):

I heard you say one can incorporate some sprints w/o jeopardizing the aerobic. 100-200 meters? Maybe after a run? I'm looking forward to finding my wife's old jump rope.

Thanks!

GZ said...

Matt - Lucho is right on the mark. You can do MAF, or any other workout on the treadmill, but it is only good for comparasion against other sessions you do on the treadmill. It seems to me that most folks tell me they find the treadmill harder. My experience is that once you get over the mental insanity of it, it is physically easier. I find I can maintain paces on it about 15-30 seconds faster than outside (for the same HR). And yup - get outside as much as you can.

Lucho - I am a maybe for Sunday. I am not sure what we are doing yet with the day.

Curious - you took four days off from running and felt good today. How do you figure that when you compare that to your recent taper experience?

Live it.

GZ

Lucho said...

GZ- I'll go earlier if that works better. I'll post the proposed session in tomorrow's entry but it will be something like this (Matt- check out this structure) WU) ~4 miles. MAF test on the track: 4 miles. Then diagonals on the infield: 20 X sprint from corner to corner at ~2 mile race effort/ walk the end zone for the rests. cd) 2 miles. ~12 miles total.
Matt- you can and should incorporate some strides in to your sessions. I feel that 200 meters is too long and will elicit a small cardiac and metabolic response. It's better to keep them to less than 20 seconds. You should also be allowing full recovery after each in order to get your HR down and to flush out what little metabolic waste is produced. These are not to be confused with Chuck's Tabata sessions.. see this page http://chuckiev.blogspot.com/2008/03/tabata-training.html

Matt said...

GZ,
I have very similar feedback from the treadmill, 15-30 sec faster.

Are you doing any anaerobic stuff - sprints, short hills/bursts, etc.?

Thanks.

Lucho said...

Matt and GZ- the fact that the treadmill feels faster is in my opinion a plus. You need to be able to move your legs fast in order to run fast. Running on a treadmill possibly helps to train this neurological aspect yet still allows for a lower HR.
Matt- The Tabata training is from my understanding (which I learned from Renata Canova) ok to perform once you have built your structure somewhat through base training. It's considered strength work and Vo2 training that also enhances your hearts stroke volume. The way I have done them in the past is to perform 5-6 X 20" hill intervals (Canova recommends a hill that is no less than a 12% grade!). You do these at 100% max effort then jog very lightly to flush waste product in the most specific way possible. Before starting the next interval you should sit down and allow your HR to fall as low as you can get it ( I take 4'-5' between each interval). Then you try to get your HR to increase as much as possible and as quickly as possible on the next interval. You seem to have been training consistently enough to try one of these sessions. Only do one per week and only do them for ~6 weeks. Increase the session by 1 rep per week.

GZ said...

By strict definition, I have gone above MAF a couple of times. I know of one time where I just said screw it because it felt good to cruise up Sanitas. There have been a couple of other times where I have played in the 151 to 154 range. Those efforts have been easy enough that I have contemplated if they were actually more aerobic and above MAF. I will look to discuss with TL. Other than that, I have not done any anaerobic work other than some strides - short in length (20 secs). I am not a huge advocate of doing a stride at 100 percent ... it almost seems counter definitional to me, and I think there is a risk there that you need to be careful about (IMO). In all honesty, the primary reason why I have not gone high above MAF or done anaerobic work is because I was either managing more miles or recovering from managing more miles.

Re Sunday: well, sooner is better for me. I will probably call you tomorrow to figure out. Why Niwot? Are you running there? ;)

Lucho said...

I thought more people would want to come if we went to Niwot.
GZ- you had mentioned before that you were skeptical of the MAF work because you thought it was too slow, how do think it is working with the very high volume? Do you see that you could not run as much if you ran harder? As you adjust to the volume and you get fit with endurance you will see the economy benefit and your pace will quicken.

GZ said...

Lucho - Before the experiment, I was doing 75-85 a week. I bumped to 100 (+) when moving more exclusively in this type of training. I have backed that off because I feel some need to get my legs back (probably going to be 75 this week, that will be a touch lower than what it could be because I have done some easy hill/mtn running).

Typically when I am doing this mileage (75), I can get some speed in - right now as I am recovering (so to speak), I am not really able to do any speed (or don't want to?). I will look to climb the mileage back up, but in a less drastic step.

So, in light of this, I think that building an aerobic / MAF base is also working on the assumption that you are pushing some mileage limits-boundaries.

I have some questions on if MAF can be 154 for a guy like me, but I will have to save those for when we are on an easy run.

Lucho said...

You should only bump your HR when you have years under your belt. I'm in my 10th year of this protocol and my body is already an efficient, fat burning machine. You need to spend a great amount of time training your metabolism to spare glycogen.. raising your HR will not do this. But- we're all different so I can only speculate with you... you should get to a lab and have some blood drawn to be sure. Or get your respiratory quotient tested..

kerrie said...

hmmmmm, i could be in for the run if it were earlier cause we are going to be doing a huge easter egg hunt around here.

i totally did some anaerobic work last night, way above MAF when i had to sprint in my heels so i think i am recovering today from that effort...