Discussion: HR at 105 - am I wasting my time?

During yesterday's long-slow run (~2 hours around trails at VF Mt. Joy), I noticed that my Heart Rate was around 105 much of the time. I was probably going especially slow because I was reading a patent. When I stopped doing, my default long-slow pace HR increased to around 115 to 120. This compares to ~179 at the end of recent 5k, 160's during a typical 70-90 minute O' race, and ~40 resting pulse.

My pace is also pretty low, usually 10-12 minute miles, but that's on trails, grass and some hills. I think my flat-paved automatic long-slow pace tends to be about 9:30-10 minute miles. That compares to ~8 minute miles as suggested by Daniel's pace tables. So I'm still movin' pretty slow.

I wonder if I'm totally wasting my time, or if I'm getting value out of this. One bit of value I _think_ I'm getting is injury resistance. By doing this long-slow volume really slow, I'm not doing much damage at all, but I am getting my joints/muscle/tendons used to moving for a long time. As is often the case with my long-slow runs, my legs were mildly muscle/joint sore at the end, but my lungs barely noticed.

A former Triathlon coach of a Collegiate National Championship team (Ian Ramsey) once told me that you can't run to slow on your long-slow runs. Am I taking him too seriously? Should I push up my HR and pace on my long slow runs for more effective training?

You should go higher.
Remember, last time I ran with you a week ago, my average HR was 115 (which is too low for me, too easy). Yes, I felt very well, but ... I prefer to average (at least) 125-130 (upto 135) for easy long runs. Just my personal point of view.

I think it depends on the patent.

I think the below-level-2 training (slower than Daniels's prescribed E) is very relevant for distances over 40 km flat eq., i.e. competitve races over ~4 hrs in duration. You indeed strengthen your joints, plus there has to be some benefit of building capillaries and possibly recruiting fast-twitch into slow-twitch. The reason Daniels suggests a pace for E, I think, is to keep the stride more or less organized, to keep working on your running economy even during easy runs. With a considerably slower pace it is easier to get away with poor running form. For competition length over 4 hours, the form is not particularly relevant; joint and muscle strength are much more so.

So, are 12-minute miles helpful if you never intend to compete for much over 3 hours? I guess you get less benefit compared to doing 8-min miles (proper E pace for Wyatt according to Daniels), but also a shorter recovery time for the same time spent running. Quite possibly even a shorter recovery time for the same distance covered.

And you're getting practice running with your eyes on a piece of paper in your hand. Whatever the pace, I think there's value in the coordination workout. Maybe try to do this on rough trails, as opposed to big jeep roads.

I tend to read on rooty, rocky trail runs, although I pause often, and rarely read downhill, because I don't tape my ankles for these workouts and don't want to risk a bad tweak.

Vlad has correctly presumed I care more about my sub-3-hour races (e.g. almost everything I do, except the Highlander...) So I guess I should be moving at flat-paved-8-minute mile effort in the woods. Since I rarely run on flat paved roads, I'd rather convert that to an effort, vis-a-vis an HR. What HR would that be? 130? Or maybe I should just runa a flat-paved-8-minute mile pace for a two miles and see what my HR is at the end of that.

Experimental results:
1x flat 8-minute-mile on pavement, HR 146+/- 2
1x flat 8-minute mile on treadmill, HR 146+/-2

I think I'll use 145 because it's rounder.

That's much faster than my normal long-slow pace, and indeed, as Vlad says, it forces me to pay attention to form/running-economy, whereas 10 minute mile pace is just 'default' slow run.

I wonder though how hard it is to recover from doing that for 2-2.5 hours... We'll see next week.

I agree with the main points of Vadimm, Vladimir and Daniels. I agree with the importance of doing the long runs slowly, especially for orienteers (less so for road racers because the form issue is more important). Still, I have to admit that HR 105 is slower than I ever envisioned. :-)

Wyatt, is there a reason that you stay out of the woods on these runs? Mt Joy, Mt Misery and the Fatlands have some nice forest, even for injury prone legs. Long slow runs are a great way to get in highly relevant woods running, with a reduced risk of injury.

The other point about long, slow runs is to make them long enough. A two hour run for a 90 min race is hardly overdistance. Assuming that you work up to it, I think 2.5- 3.0 hrs is more appropriate, especially at a low intensity.

I think forest running makes these longer workouts possible because it is easier to recover from. In simple terms, the forces are distributed over a wider range of muscles and joints, which coincidentally, is exactly what makes it more relevant as well.

On the psychological side, I think time passes much faster in the forest. Did Einstein say something like that?

yeah, I never imagined / noticed you were doing most of your training that slow. (probably Ian wouldn't have either) At around 45% of your heart rate reserve [I guessed your max is around 183... HRR = (HR-RHR)/(MHR-RHR)], you're not getting much aerobic benefit, and you may be teaching yourself bad form. you probably want to be closer in the range of 125-155. is sub-aerobic ever ok? sure, at the beginning of runs or for recovery runs when your main goal is to loosen up. is this the most efficient use of your training time on longer runs? almost certainly not.

HR is probably a decent way to determine what your conditioning pace should be across different surfaces (road/terrain). at the same perceived intensity, your HR will probably be higher in the forest since you're using slighly more muscles for balance, etc. for example, I think you could easily get your heart rate up to 105 by walking around in the forest. (compare to effort of other quasi-training activities we sometimes laugh about logging here...)

alternatively, with Daniels you can figure your paces for any surface/weather/etc, just by using a race over similar conditions. this wouldn't directly apply to o-races where there is a non-physical component slowing you down, but if you have a marked or familiar enough course that you can go all-out, it might just work.

so yeah, pick it up.

Don't forget that while you are training your HR will go down slightly. So to run same 145 HR pace in a year will take you much more efforts :) as you should be moving faster.

Wyatt, thanks for being a willing subject.

I believe Mike Eglinski not all that long ago posted a translated excerpt from an interview with Holger Hott-Johansen to the effect that a lot of his training consisted of terrain running at intensities low enough that many if not most running training theorists would consider it useless.

Later addition - if memory serves, this was all or mostly in reference to his base training phase. He is no doubt doing much more fast training now. Although Sandy reports that he did 20 hours of training in the week before the Norwegian team trials so surely quite a lot of that must still be low intensity.

I got the impression that the low intensity terrain training he was talking about was intended primarily for technical/navigational benefit (i.e. technically intense), so it wouldn't be as important how much physiological effect there was. if anything, I'd assume they actually did less of this during base training phases.

Links to a some info on Holger HJ and Anders Nordberg's training where they talk about training at very low h.r.:


http://okansas.blogspot.com/2004/12/very-easy-runn...


http://okansas.blogspot.com/2005/05/nordbergs-trai...

And here (in Norwegian only) is Holger HJ's training the week before the Norwegian selection races:


http://kok.no/tiki/tiki-read_article.php?articleId...

ok I take that back, but it still sounds like aerobic training is not the goal.

Certainly not the only goal. I remember long ago in a cycling context there was a theory that doing a rather long period (on the order of a couple of months) of high volume low intensity training could induce the formation of networks of fine capillaries in the muscles used. The theory at the time held that, during this period, the network would be destroyed if you flooded it even once with lactic acid so the dedication required to test the theory was considerable. Can't say I've kept track of any rise or fall in the stock of this theory since but I wouldn't entirely rule out there being benefits beyond adaptation of the joints, muscles and reflexes to terrain running.

The Norwegians often do something called polarized training, which involves lots of low intensity volume training and then some (about 8-10% total training time) of very high intensity training.

I really like doing long runs and intervals in the forest, because the navigation takes your mind off the physical effort.

In Norway they have this great thing called "Turorientering" - meaning lots and lots of permanent controls on several maps. When I had just started orienteering I would buy a packet of 5-7 maps and use these for 1-2 of my training days each week.