SBR Utopia Season II - OPEN (Page 109)

I don't wear an HR monitor at all.

Shane set them but they were based on my VDOT.

Neil - I too use all three, depending on the workout.

My zones are set by Lactate Threshold tests and then adjusted by my coach depending on where we are in my training cycle and data he is getting back from workouts. The zones I am given actually overlap each other - which makes a lot of sense to me. I don't really get  charts that have hard distinctions between the zones: for instance if my zone 1 tops out at 144 and zone 2 starts at 145 - what really is the difference between one heart beat? Also, most folks I know that use HR exclusively tend to run right at the top of whatever zone they are supposed to be in, so what good really is the rest of the space in the zone? In the end they are just numbers that give us a rough estimate of effort, not magic voodoo. So here are mine (coach actually just revised and sent them to me this morning):

E3 Base Run: 148 -161
E4 Endurance Run: 157-168
E5, E6 Steady State: 163-176
LT4 Tempo: 178-189

I think my base run effort is generally what most folks would call Z2, floating up into Z3 maybe.

I use pace exclusively for track and road intervals, but our terrain and climate around here is so varied that to try and use pace for long runs is often counterproductive. For long runs and even hard progressions I use HR, but only once it is settled in after a good warm up. For what my coach refers to as "legit"  base runs HR becomes a hard limiter, but for hilly trail and/or hot and humid runs often I am allowed to let my HR creep up into endurance or steady state effort on climbs, especially on the back half of the workout, so these are really the runs where I practice RPE pacing.

For sprints and olympic racing (and 5k/10ks) I use RPE exclusively on the run. For longer races I will pay more attention to it. For the IM marathon - HR is king for the first 18 miles, so long as I have paced the bike correctly.

Most of what everyone has said jives with how I use HR.  I like to think of it as my governor for the most part, but have learned that my body tends to show a fair amount of variability from one day to the next, and I need to allow for that.  If I feel good, but HR is higher than expected then I'll typically ignore and go based off pace.  I am however hoping to see a correlation with faster paces and lower HR coming out of this winter - assuming of course I keep on running.

I'd shoot myself playing that game.  When I run on the treadmill (and it's getting close to that season), I try to add variety by changing up the speeds every mile, plus I take a sip of my drink every 5min, it's the best thing for me to break up the monotony.

But now I'm curious how far I could go in 45min.  Z2 ends at 158 for me, so does that mean you can't exceed that number?  (This is not something I'm going to run out and test soon...)

1 hour run early tomorrow morning followed by a potential long day at work in Gatineau implementing Virtual Desktops.  

Flying home Sunday.

Helping out a friend/race director with a 5k that should garner a few state records tomorrow morning. Maybe an easy run in the afternoon. Then the Fred D 1 hour challenge on Sunday, but honestly I will probably chicken out on that one.

Crossed the 2000 Km mark for this year during my run this morning.  I only hit 1728 for all of 2012.

3:40 ride on the CT today (30s and rain here) and 14 mi run tomorrow likely in mixed rain and snow.  4 weeks out from IM AZ

that's not exactly Arizona preparatory weather!

16km run this morning.  Been suffering a bit of a knot in my left calf the past few days, and it became an issue straight away, and I changed my run from a lot of ups and downs to one that was a lot flatter.  Kind of soldiered through it, although that was not the smart move as I now have a very tight/sore calf and can't really walk properly.  Have a massage booked for Tuesday, so hopefully she can work it out...but I know it's going to hurt, a lot.

Good luck on the HM tomorrow Tom - PR here you come!!

2 hour ride this morning, mostly social.  Friend that trained a lot with me and really got me into the sport, had a couple kids, fell away.   He signed up for SIlverman 2014 so this was his welcome back.  Mostly easy with one decent climb in the big ring.   Followed by :20 run.  Was supposed to be 8:30 first mile then easy in, but there was a rabbit at the turnaround and ego got the best of me (see what I mean about Z2 to Z3??)

Tomorrow quick :30 OWS.  It'll have to be quick as wetsuit is on its way to Miami (in case, but probably not), followed by hour run negative split

I've pretty much given up hope but I'll probably still pack mine too, just in case.  

No speedsuit for me for the same reason as you.  I'll be swimming in my trisuit.