Ni!

Monday, July 16, 2007

56:00 :: 8 miles

Easy run. HR was 53 standing around before the run, but averaged 137 for the run, which is 4-5 bpm higher than normal for the pace. Legs felt really good this morning.

Run Two | Weather | Supplemental | Nutrition | Sleep | Injury

5 comments:

Stacey said...

When you do an "easy" run, what percent of your max HR are you running at?

Eric said...

I would stress that I run 'easy' based on what feels comfortable first, and based on heart rate a distant second.

That said, my easy recovery runs for the last six weeks or so have been around 128-132 average HR, with a max of 180, or 71-73%.

I consider 138-140HR to be the upper end of an easy run, which is around 77%.

The HR percents have remained very consistent over the past two years of training, while the paces have changed pretty significantly.

Stacey said...

Good stuff. I am in a strictly aerobic training phase right now so I have gotten very used to those 70-73% max HR runs. My pace SUCKS at that HR right now because I have no aerobic ability but it is slowly and surely getting better.

How many years have you been running? Running as much as you do now, etc.? What was the pace for an "easy" run (70-73% max HR) two years ago?

Sorry for bombarding you with questions. I just really desire to be where you are and want to see what it takes to get there and what improvement is possible with hard (and smart) work.

Eric said...

I started running when I was 13, but probably not what I would call 'training' until 15, then serious training starting in college at 19 until I was 23. From there, I graduated and gradually did less and less running--basically back to zero--until summer 2005, age 32, when I started training again.

Crazy.

I started the serious *consistent* training in November 2005, and in less than two years, I have achieved nearly the same PRs as I did in twice that time in college. Consistency along with proper training makes all the difference.

I ran over 80 miles a week for a total of *three* weeks in my entire college career.

I ran over 100 miles a week for a total of 9 weeks in the winter of 2005-2006, with 1450 miles in 15 weeks during that period. That base is what I'm performing off of right now.

My easy runs back when I started were 7:30-7:40 pace. Two caveats: they were almost exclusively on the treadmill, adding 10-15 seconds per mile, and they were almost always singles, or very long runs which required a slower pace in order to come back day after day. So, I would say just under 7:30 pace would have been a typical easy day back then.

Good questions. I'm happy to answer. Smart work is definitely the key. The training I did in college was hard. There's a big difference in the results!

Stacey said...

Very helpful, thanks.

I am sure there will be more questions to come.

Thanks again.