*not a sifu here

What's your Heart rate at the end of your 5k runs?

The best way to run faster is to run slower.

Build up your aerobic endurance by running with your heart rate at zone 2. Gradually increase your mileage by doing a weekly long run. Once your body gets comfortable with the distance then you can start incorporating speed sessions. Always listen to your body to avoid injury.

I'm learning the hard way that periodisation is the key to improvement.

Personally, I think it's a waste of time to do speed work when you don't have the aerobic base for it. Basically, littlesmarty is just trying to complete an ultra distance - from half marathon base fitness... focus should just be on increasing the mileage before bothering with the speed work. 200m, 400m and 1k intervals are to help improve your race pace but should only be done once you have the aerobic base for it - otherwise it's just junk miles imo. Also, if you're running an ultra and your goal is to finish, that speedwork is not going to help you finish at all.

I have no doubt that Hansons marathon method is a good book - amazon reviewers love it. But if you're still trying to handle a HM, maybe you need to focus a bit on the base training before killing yourself on the speedwork.

Also HR Zones are a bit different depending on who's talking about it, rather than using numbers, maybe it's better to use terms like recovery, aerobic, tempo, threshold and anaerobic so that everyone understands what you're talking about.

First of all, I have to say that I am a noob. I'm in my 40s and I've just started training for triathlons (started c25k in march 2018, first 10k in July, sprint tri in Oct) and all I know is that by this time next year I will be able to swim 1.9k, cycle 90km and run 21k without killing myself. For this I'm working on my annual training plan, it's a WIP but I'm planning to join lots of different B and C events to check my progress. I know I'm not going to suddenly find myself doing something I didn't know was coming a mile away.

If the race is round the corner, you're either in the build phase with more quality workouts or you're in taper when you're winding down to hit peak form before your race. If you've not done the base work all the speed work in the world is not going to help you because you are not prepared. The worst thing you can do before an event is run 7 days a week. You will walk and in the worst case injure yourself.

I think if you're already doing 15k long runs regularly, I think you're ready to train for a HM. How you train depends on that your goal is: Finish, finish without walking, finish under 2hrs, finish at Kipchoge's marathon pace? Running in zone 3 do you mean your own personal pace zone or HR zone? Your terminology is really confusing. Personally I feel that if a plan tells you to do 10x400 and you can only do 3x400 - then you're following the wrong plan for you.

Haha I have no illusions of actually making it onto the podium. Still need to have some sort of basic plan though. After all we're here to improve our running.

One thing that is very satisfying for me is seeing the improvement in my average heart rate. I've been doing most of my runs at zone 2 last few months for me is 132-150bpm and it's definitely helped me improve my recovery, weekly mileage, pace and to lower my average heart rate all at the same time. Otherwise I don't think i'd be able to manage the extra swimming, biking and strength training.

I live in puchong. Yep, finding people at the right level to train with is difficult. I work full time and my job involves travelling. Consistency is the hardest thing for me. Curi curi exercise whenever I can.

I swim about 2k 3 times per week after i drop my kid at school and before work. I have no doubt that it has contributed greatly to my overall fitness.

Also just wanted to add age is no barrier. There's this lady i know who's in her 50s and just did the full ironman on an 18hour per week training schedule. her 10k pace is 5:30/km.

I'm still a noob and working on building up my weekly mileage and trying to get 30km per week consistently. I still have a year to train but for now I want to train solo - i'm doing a lot of work travelling and with real life it's difficult to commit to having a fixed training schedule. That's why the curi-curi exercise - if I have a free 45min slot i'll just go out and run.

Also been doing a bit of reading up on /r/running - their FAQ is really good for beginner runners and there are a lot more links for more in depth reading. like this one here which is a comparison of different training plans http://fellrnr.com/wiki/A_Comparison_of_Ma..._Training_Plans

A lot of beginners get too hung up on distance and speed. Don’t worry about all those things. Focus instead on time spent running without stopping.

I started running last year with a couch to 5k programme. The focus is simply to get running 5k without needing to stop. I actually used this one https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/exercise/couch...k-week-by-week/
You get measurable progress and accountability with an actual programme.

Once you complete that then start worrying about heart rate and pace zones.

Everyone’s journey is different but after 3 months of starting the programme I was able to do 10k without walking. If you have a base level of fitness already maybe start at the more advanced weeks.

I’m still a slow runner but I enjoy my running and I’m looking forward to completing my 1st half marathon this weekend.

based on that 220-age formula I should be at 176max... the trouble with that is that it's very close to what my optimum running cadence is supposed to be - and I think the optical sensor on my watch (apple series 3) confuses the both and gives me some sort of cadence lock on my HR. At the recent Penang bridge HM, I had Peak HR readings of 180bpm for 6 mins and 176BPM (my theoretical max) for 20 mins which is BS if that's supposed to equate to an anaerobic effort. Pace zone was Tempo or M phase on my VDot.

I'm still a noob runner though, and I've only been running slightly more than a year so what do I know? All I know is that my HR zones don't make much sense currently I'm going to do a retest at the end of the year with a chest strap - do a 30 min all out effort and get the last 10 minute average for my lactate threshold HR and work out the HR Zones from there.

Just picked up a forerunner 945 over the weekend. The amount of stats over the series 3 apple watch I was using makes for some interesting reading as I have been doubting the data on that watch for months now.

I was doing this JD red plan workout based on vdot 32 intensity yesterday - 10min E, 4xST, 2x(5minI+4min Jog+3min I+2min jog), 10min E. Optical HRM recorded a max of 191BPM - but this was in the middle of the 3rd interval and then it dropped back down 182BPM at the end of the interval (my pace was consistent) - for me this doesn't make sense. Moral of the story is - you have to look at the HR graph to see whether it passes the sanity check.

2019 was my year of aerobic base training, I was training for a half ironman from a very low fitness base so 90% of my running was done at a zone 2 conversational pace. This year, I would like to focus on my running which means more quality workouts but I'm still a believer in easy miles - since I'm in my mid 40s and I really need that recovery lol. That's why I need my training zones. Vdot works for me right now, because the difficulties feel just about right and I've run at those distances. HR just doesn't work right now because I'm not sure I can trust the data from my devices. If i get a chest strap then will update my HR zones. Right now I've set my HR zones for Garmin Connect based on %LTHR which i have guesstimated at about 169 which seems to make sense from an intensity point of view.

The other thing about using HR for training, it's effected by so many things Heat, sweat, hydration, stress... like this month, my min HR is up from 50 to something like 57 due to workplace stress and 1 month of detraining... Mat Salleh heart zones are not directly comparable unless you adjust for our heat and humidity.

Seriously though - see a doctor for that. No one on this forum is qualified to give you medical advice that you can rely on.

For me, running is a way of dealing with stress. I just love how I can zone out when running and not have to think about anything - for sure it's better than just sitting around worrying about stuff.

Happy New Year runners!

Did a 30 minute time trial yesterday. Set a new PB on 5k which increased my vdot from 32 to 34. Average HR for last 20 minutes was 165 which is now my LTHR to be used for setting zones. Will train based on those numbers for the next month or so and then retest.

Last month my mileage was roughly 30km a week. New years resolution will be to slowly increase mileage up to 45km - and then follow a half Marathon training plan.

Short term goals will be to improve my 5k times to increase my Vdot values and ramp up the intensity and break 1 hour on the 10k eventually.

I'm getting into running quite late in life (started 2018 at 43). PB for 5k is 27:25 in that 30min time trial. I've not raced a proper 10k since 2018 when I first started so my best 10k was during the PB HM in Nov when I did 1:05:25. Based on my workouts now - Improving my 5k time by 1 minute next month is achievable.

2019 was training for triathlons so I wasn't mostly doing easy stuff to build my aerobic engine. This year I want to try to put some focus on the running. Get some quality sessions in to improve my speed instead of just chilling out in zone 2. And avoid injury.

2020 will be a good year I'm sure! I'm busier than ever with work but I'm finding that making time for running is such a big improvement to quality of life.

Sorry man, don't know the answer to your question. In the end I just used the wrist based HR reading.

I do feel though that taking the final 20 minute average HR from a 30 minute time trial is good enough to calculate your LTHR. Any HR spikes would be flattened out over the time period. You mentioned earlier that your forerunner235 does not support LTHR - but this is a setting you can change within garmin connect and is much better than any random max HR less age formula for calculating zones.

How I do it is I enter the zone in Device settings>user settings for your watch on the garmin connect website. The next time the watch syncs with the app on the phone, your watch will display your new HR Zones and your charts for new activities made will reflect the new zones. Unfortunately as far as I can tell there is no way of entering pace zones on Connect although you could probably do that on strava.

This post has been edited by Kidicarus: Jan 3 2020, 03:56 PM

No need. You just need your LTHR which is your 20minute average from a 30min time trial. Just change that setting.

Yeah I see what you mean there - for me that's just the number that Garmin came up with for their formula - 107% being my so called maximum - that's just a meaningless number. If I spend a lot of time above that number - it just means that I need to learn how to test better lol

SCMKL priority registration. Whoever did those numbers is not a runner.

I’m sure it wasn’t easy. Point I was trying to make was that those paces don’t really correlate to an equivalent level of fitness...

It's just priority registration so it's not really a big deal. But letting in some guy who can do a 1 hour 10k (which is not really all that fast) will end up with an expected marathon time of 4:33 (based on vdot - which is very optimistic based on our weather) - that's some improvement to the average time but still much slower than a 4hrs.

At least it's not Boston Qualifying times.