Executed the no plan plan this week and went on a "what are my HR zones" odyssey, when I'm 99% sure I can just run by feel at this point.
Have done around 25 per week the last 3 weeks and was feeling a bit sore and tired, so cut back this week. Due to random thoughts was yet again considering a parkrun to see where I am, but decided against it. Was going to do a cut down run from 6 min/km to 5 min/km to see where I was. Then saw this garmin LT test feature and thought I'd do that instead, which is also a lot easier :-) As you can see there's not a lot of plan in this plan.
Activities
- Mo. 2.1 @ 12:56/123
- Tue. Rest
- Wed. 4.8 @ 10:46/148. Did the recommended garmin workout on a goof. 4 x 6' @9:40 with 2' recovery. My route is very hilly, so I tried even effort. First was downhill and rest were net up. grade-adjusted paces/AHR were 9:35/145, 9:30/159, 9:34/160, and 9:28/163, so I did a decent job. Actual paces were 9:25, 9:46, 10:02, and 9:41.
- Thu. Rest
- Fri. nbhrd 3 @ 12:01/135
- Sat. 4.51 @ 10:58/144. Garmin LT test plus 3' to try and get max HR.
- Sun. 4.58 @ 12:00/135. Burke Lake. Time in HR zones: 1 (6%), 2 (89%), 3 (2%). See below for zone definitions.
Week: 19.2 miles, 3h42m. 2539 calories.
Weight: average 196.1 +/- 0.7 (n=5). (prev week 195.7)
My hilly routes
My area is aptly called "Rolling Valley," so unless you're running by a stream, you're running over hills. This is my 4.8-mile loop. Total ascent 404 feet over 4.8 miles. Marine Corps Marathon supposedly has 630 feet of elevation gain.
Need to sleep
Sleep has been terrible. Garmin is mocking me with "you seem stressed" messages and told me I was "bottoming out" and my body battery was at 5 out of 100. Thanks, Garmin!
After trending down, my resting HR has been heading back up, which isn't good.
HRV also decreasing -- also, not good.
lactate threshold test
The test is a 10-15' wup followed by increasing target heart rate zones every 4' (basically a Hadd test with shorter intervals). The first beat paper describing the LT calculation says it looks for some inflection in HRV (which is why you have to wear the strap).
I did this on one of the few flat places in this area -- the cross county trail, which runs along a stream.
Here are the sad results
- 4' @ 11:34/134 AHR
- 4' @ 11:42/136 AHR -- was center of green. Why almost identical zone?
- 4' @ 10:04/147 AHR
- 4' @ 9:27/157 AHR
The first two zones were almost identical, which as weird. I thought it was going to give me another zone when it ended and said LTHR was 160 bpm and LT pace was 9:51/mile (ouch!). Really surprised it ended there. I was still doing 4-4 breathing when it ended. I guess if I kept that heart rate up for a while, maybe I'd have transitioned to 2-2?
Since I was warmed up, I decided to see if I could hit a higher max, so I picked it up and tried to progressively increase pace until I couldn't push the HR higher. Saw 184 on the watch. After run, it automatically set my new max to 185 (and garmin web site says I hit 186?). Then did another 20' jogging back to the car. HR came down pretty easily and was 153 AHR @ 10:45 over last 8 minute lap.
Some excuses -- it was warm for me. 72 deg/61 dew point. I woke up with a headache and BP was higher than usual 124/71/54 this morning.
HR Zones
So what zone should I use? The ones defined by Garmin based on my supposed LTHR look pretty reasonable to me and the first three match (in feel) what I've called recovery, easy, and moderate in the past (in 2010 when I did my best running). Garmin calls these warmup, easy, and aerobic/moderate.
| Zone | %LTHR | Low | High |
| Max (Z5) | >100 | 160 | 185 |
| Threshold (Z4) | 90-100 | 152 | 160 |
| Aerobic/moderate (Z3) | 89-95 | 142.4 | 152 |
| Easy (Z2) | 80-89 | 128 | 142.4 |
| Warmup (Z1) | 65-80 | 104 | 128 |
| | | |
| Max | 185 | | |
| RHR | 53 | | |
| LTHR | 160 | |
I've tried to figure out how this matches others zone 2, including the Peter Attia guy. He talks about zone 2 as between aerobic threshold/max fat and lactate threshold (2 mmol) (1 hour time)?
I have a pretty good sense of effort and correspondence base on running with an HRM all those years and my sense is that the border between Garmin's Z2 and Z3 -- ~142 -- is my aerobic threshold. There's a fairly discrete point where my 4-4 breathing becomes just a little deeper. Could be wrong abou this, but that's how it feels. It's strange that this is about the same HR (maybe 3 beats lower) than when I was logging a bunch of miles back in the day. So, I think Peter Attia's zone 2 is probably Garmin's zone 3. The most concrete I've heard is someone on reddit claims he said he starts his patients with 78% max, which would be 144 bpm for me. All kind of lines up.
80/20 is another buzzword apparently (Matt Fitzgerald continues to make bank) and has it's Zone 2. For what it's worth, those seem to match Garmin's pretty well.
So after all this, I plan to just do easy running until I build mileage and get a good habit and time carved out of the week. If I don't think it will hurt my recovery, I might do some moderate running every n-th day where n depends on how I feel.
Strength training
I know I need to do this, but find it all very confusing. Only time I really did was a year I had a coach and am not sure I did any of it correctly. Really feel like I need to do this given my age. Also think it was one of my big weaknesses back in the day.
