Come fly with me!- Closed again with a bunch of winners! (Page 14)

Nice - I can't believe you did it on the treadmill. Kudos to hubby for watching over you too!

Question - did you change the pace much, or keep it the same. If I did it to see if my average is close to the 10k I ran, I would probably start slowing it down as the time went on, or I would seriously fall off the back. But since Scott said it's not a pace test, it shouldn't matter right?

And about the chips - if I did the run with a chip in your hand thing, I probably wouldn't break it from clenching my hands, but it would be a soggy mess after a few minutes because I sweat so much. So your bag idea could work nicely!

So with these zones - now what?? How do you determine when to run in Z1/Z2, Z3, Z4, Z5?

And - do you have the instructions on how to get LT for biking?

Karen,
There are training plans that tell you when to work in what zone. I have a 10 year old book that lists plans based on zones. (There is an awful picture of some guy running in little running shorts on the front.) I am sure there are more up to date resources available.

When I did the LT test on the treadmill, I had an idea of the fastest pace I thought I could hold for 30 minutes. I ran that pace for the 10 minutes after the warmup, and kept an eye on my heartrate. My HR was lower than I thought it should be during that time, so I increased the pace incrementally until I felt like I was working where I was supposed to be. During the 20 minutes that I recorded my HR, I did have to slow down the pace (.5 mile per hour over the entire 20 minutes, the same amount I had increased the pace.)

I think I will start by echoing what Cole said. There are a lot of training plans available out there. I have a hard time with them a little because they don't taylor to a specific athletes needs and pace for fitness. Everyone "gains" fitness at different rates. They are great however for giving you a training baseline that you can build off.

Just as a basic outline, Your workouts should start and end in zone one. This is your cool down and warm up zone. For a run I spend at least 10 minutes in this zone on either end.

Zone 2 is where the bulk of your training should be done (about 80%). This zone can usually be held for longer stretches of time making it a great place to improve fitness and endurance as well as the optimal zone for burning fat and teaching your body how to take in and use oxygen more efficiently. Zone 1 and 2 are both aerobic zones.

Zone 3 is your speed building and race pace zone. It is still mostly aerobic but the upper part of the zone is anaerobic which is the part of the zone where you will start to produce lactic acid (What your body makes when you can't get the CO2 out fast enough). Zone three does a couple of excellent things for your training. 1) You are getting your body used to coping with lactic acid. 2) You are also pushing up the threshold at which the lactic acid production starts. About once a week I have a 1 hour run where I spend the middle 20 minutes in zone three and the rest of the run in zone 2. On my other runs during the week I will usually do a 1 hour run where I will have 8 intervals where I run at 5k pace for 30 seconds and rest in zone 2 for 1:30 between. Again the goal is to just bump up against that lactic acid production without going overboard. In the more physical sense this zone is also teaching your body to just go faster. If you only train in zone 2 then you will race in zone 2. If you want to go faster then you want to gently push up your bodies ability to do just that. Making them short pieces of training within your workouts is a great way to do just that.

Zone 4 is an anaerobic zone where difficult intervals are done. You shouldn't spend a lot of time here and have adequate rest before your next workout. I use zone 4 to improve my short distance times. Sometimes I go to the track and practice running 3 miles in zone 4 with a 1/2 mile break between each. At the end of the workout I have almost run a 5k in zone 4. Because I have pushed that eventually I will be able to run the whole 5k at that pace and my body will have adapted to the work load. Fitness will have improved, HR will come down and lactic acid will not be produced in such an abundance as it was the first time I did the workout.

Zone 5 is also anaerobic and is considered a max capacity zone. Short sprints and intervals are done here. Time in this zone is short with a long recovery afterward because of the stress it put on you. Burn out, over training and injury can all happen here if this zone is overused. Because we train mainly for endurance sports I might hit this zone once a month. When building base, I never use it.

I hope that helps. Right now I spend about 80-85% in zone 2, 10% in zone 1 and 5% in zone 3. If I hit zone 4 or 5 right now it is by accident or lack of attention. As race season gets closer I will begin using zone 4 more and zone 5 a little to try to up my lactic threshold and speed.

Having said all of that I can also give you some examples of how my coach incorporates zones into my training and you can use them how you think they will best work for you. Also just an FYI the same principles apply to the swim bike and run. Your zone range may be different by a little but once you know how to improve on them, the work type load is much the same. (I usually find my zones lower on the bike and pretty close to the same in the swim) If you want some specific workouts as examples let me know. I have some for all three sports.

Hope this helps,
Scott

I totally agree with you. What is really hard is weather is one of the few things I can't control. One thing I do to help is run at night. Kinda sounds weird but I find at night I don't look around so much because its dark and focus more on thinking or music or something else. I don't recomment it for swimming or biking but it works pretty well for running. Hopefully spring is on the way soon.

Just another question for the group (are we down to four???) Who is your biggest encourager? Where do you find reinforcement for your exercise?

Thanks Scott for sharing the zones and how you use them. I noticed that I typically run in Zone 4 most of the time but I don't feel like I am. Maybe I need to do the treadmill or track test, in case the 10k results were not accurate. Or I need to slow down to keep my heart rate lower. I already feel like I'm crawling though as it is, I could probably walk faster.

My biggest encourager would have to be my husband. He almost always travels to races with me and cheers me on. He always lets me know how proud he is of me, even if I don't feel like I had a good race myself. I know it's hard for him sometimes because we are almost always doing something for me whether it's training, getting my bike ready (he's my bike guy!), getting up at the crack of dawn to drive me somewhere, picking me up if I'm out training and just can't quite make it back home. He's a great supporter, encourager, maintenance guy, you name it. I'm very lucky - I don't always let him know how much I appreciate him though, so this was a good question to remind me.

I am fairly self motivated to exercise. I am also usually the instigator for being active. Having said that, my husband is my biggest encourager. We were talking on our ride today about heartrate and zones, and he offered to get me a new HRM that kept track of all the zones. Whenever I have a crazy idea (do the MS150, compete in a duathlon, ride across the state, run a marathon....etc), he is always behind me. If he isn't able to participate with me, he still finds ways to support my training. When I did my 25 mile training run before the marathon, he ran the first 5 miles with me and then rode his bike beside me for the rest of the time. My parents, brother, and sister don't totally get my "craziness," (though my brother is starting to) but they are very proud and supportive anyway.

I also get a lot of encouragement from this group. It is nice to ask questions. It is also nice to have discussions with people who are doing the same things.

Absolutely! I couldn't agree more - there's nothing better.

I'll admit crossing the finish line is great, but the best part is all the endorphins!

Scott, I've been thinking about your information about running (not the potato chip part.) It makes sense to keep a steady cadence regardless of your speed. You do the same thing when riding, or at least you are supposed to. I haven't timed it, but I think I tend to keep a fairly steady cadence when running. It explains why I have trouble with pace...I always think I am running the same speed, when I am actually just keeping the same beat and varying my strides. I need to work on a faster cadence while running. Thanks for the info.

Lt test importance...good question.

Basically a LT test shows you your bodies current capacity to do work and be efficient.It also shows up where and with what intensity level we should be doing our workouts relative to our heart rate. Lt is also a great way for you to see the best way to reach your goals. For example "I need to build up my endurance" Well if you spend a lot of time in zone 2 and a little in zone three, thats what will happen. LT is also a great way to prevent over training and injury.

Let me know if you want more help with this.
Scott

The first time I ran with a heart rate monitor I went for 10 miles and I hated the thing. I was convinced it was lying and I was right. There was no way I could be making my self better while working so little. I have since learned other wise but it took me buying another 2 heart rate monitors before I finally believed that they were actually telling the truth. (Yes I actuially returned the first two because I thought there was no way they could be right.)

I also have a lot of workouts in zone 4. My average for the entire workout may be zone 3, but only if you add in the warmup and cooldown. I also think that my race pace is zone 4. What does this mean? My husband and I bought new HRMs today so we can more accurately understand what we are currently doing and then figure out how to improve.

Good question. One thing that might help is to understand that like your heart rate, your training should have zones.

There is the off season. All that is done during this time is building "base" Establishing good fitness to build off of later. Stretch out endurance and overall fitness. Most of the work during this time is zone 2 and a little three with none in zone four and five.

The next is pre season. The time say starting about 2 months before races start would spend more time on zone three and four work. getting your body used to race pace stress while at the same time keeping work up in zone 2. During this time you will see a lot of gains because of the variety of work that your body has to adapt to. Plateaus are less common and your body continues to improve.

Race season A lot like pre season except more time will be spent back in zone 2 for recovery purposes. Race season is not the time to be trying to make huge gains. A lot of people say your race season performance is determined in the off season. Less time will also be spent in zone 4 because you already are during a race.

Post season....depends on your goals. A lot of people just take time off. Others start right back into base building.

One other thought is that training should have variety. You will see a lot more improvement when you force your body to adapt (and therefore improve) than you will if you do the same thing every time. Race conditions are different in a lot of ways from training and the best way to prep a body for that is to keep it guessing on what is coming next. You will also recover more quickly between workouts if they vary.

Good stuff.

Karen,
where do you try to pace when you run? I guess what is your average time for a mile when you do a longer run? To show you the difference in zones, In a zone 2 I run around a 10 minute mile. Zone three in like conditions is about 8:30, Zone 4 is about 7:30 and zone 5 is about 7:00. You can see the huge difference just by changing up zones. One thing zone 2 will do for you is allow you to spend more time in zone 4 if that makes sense.

Funny how sometimes the finish line isn't even at the race!!!

One of the things I like about triathlons is that I am constantly learning. I am far from knowing enough and love to find something new that helps make me enjoy the sport just a little more. Glad the info helped.

How exciting. Getting new gear is fun. I have a lot of ideas for do's and dont's but probably my main idea is, would you consider used? You can get a lot more bike for a lot less off of ebay or Craigs list or even off of this site in the classifieds section. If you would go used you could buy 3x the bike that you can new. Just a thought.

Let me know what you think and we'll go from there.

I don't really try to pace myself, I just run what feels comfortable. Today I did a half mile trail run (that was awesome despite the rain, mud & mess) and I wore my new Garmin w/ Heart Rate Monitor. I learned that I am very comfortable running with my heart rate in the 160's, which pace will obviously vary based on the terrain. But when I hit 170 and above I feel winded and my legs get heavy. As I approach 180 or above I'm very tired. So does that mean training in the 160's is ok, or should I really drop it lower because I'd probably have to walk/run to stay lower. I understand that in the long run training in the Z1/Z2 range helps, but could my zones be off?

How does zone 2 allow you to spend more time in zone 4? By allowing your body the rest that it needs to push yourself on other days?


Edited by karen26.2 2009-02-28 6:47 PM

Well first the easier of the two questions. Running in zone two to get better at zone 4. Think of it this way. Zone 2 is your foundation that most of your other work is built off of. If I never worked out before and went to a track I could probably do a couple of short runs in zone 4 before I reached my VT (Thanks Cole!) and I would then quit and go home. But if I went out for some training runs in zone two for 2 months and then went back to the track I could do a lot more of the sprints because overall I have increased my bodies ability to do and adapt to work loads. The other thing about just zone 4 workouts is that for anything but a sprint tri, you probably won't be able to keep the pace up and will be a fast, slow, fast slow, slow, slower type competitor. I did a half iron last summer and spent a majority of it in a low zone three, high zone 2. When I do sprints though I spend pretty much the whole time in a high zone 4 to zone 5 (and sometimes beyond...oops) These are paces I know I can keep for the duration of the event. The place where I get the zone info from said, "Most well conditioned athletes spend a majority of their race time in zone 3"

As far as how your body responds to the different work loads (zones) I think it actually describes what is going to happen without variety in wworkout. YOur body (in my very unprofessional opinion) hasn't learned how to adapt to a variety of work loads and zones. You might try some workouts where you vary the pace. Try this one maybe: run a 10 min warm up. Run for 30 sec. at 5k pace followed by 1:30 minutes back in zone two. Do this 8 times. then finish the run in zone 2. Also you canb try the above then after the 30 second pick ups try going for 20 minutes in a harder race pace type run (high zone three-low zone 4) then back to zone two for the rest of the run. Maybe give these a shot and see what happens. These two runs are my normal two every week. Saturday is the noly day where I just go for a run without variety but it is usually my long run.

One last thought. Heart rate monitors are simply a tool. They work for some and not for others. I don't think it has to be religiously followed or you are wrong. I do think that if you are goingto use it I will give you all the tools that go with it that I can and from there you decide how to interpret what it tells you. Also the numbers I gave are kinda ballpark. If you really want to dial it in I would highly recommend getting professionally tested. I did this last summer and it was very helpful.

Let me know what you think.

Good stuff. Hope everyone has a great weekend.

Edited by holt1997 2009-03-01 8:56 AM