Subject: RE: Lactate Threshold Testing - How Often? LT threshold will change more dramatically if you are in the beginning years of your training. However, once you reach a certain fitness level, your LT threshold won't change too much and can actually be held stable with little to not LT work. By way of illustration, My run LTHR was 174bpm 3 weeks before the Chicago marathon 2004. Post marathon I didn't do any LT work and just did recovery workouts for a few weeks and then slowly worked back up to long slow distance runs. Several month later my LTHR was tested again it was still 174bpm. This is an excellent illustration that speed work isn't required to keep your LTHR. I was a bit miffed at this and got some input from a few coaches, which confirmed this. Irrespective of this, I almost always get my LTHR checked on the bike AND run prior to any A-priority race that is not a race I can do "full throttle"...so before any 1/2 IM or longer race or any marathon race I get my LT checked again if it's an A-priority race. For the sprint and olympic distance races, since I've had several years of endurance training, I'm able to simply go all out for these races and not have to pace myself with LTHR.
To address your last question. My run LTHR is 174bpm but my bike LTHR is 152bpm and the variance between the two fluctuated quite a bit at first...but now I haven't seen a change in either for about 2 years...it's just my pace at these LHTRs that changes. Unless you know that 7bpm is your variance, I would do a field test or better yet, a blood lactate test for your run LTHR.
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