With Spring arriving in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s time for many of us to shift our training from the treadmill to outside.
In our testing chapter, John wrote…
As a general rule, test in the environment where the athlete does most of their training. So outside when they train outside (velodrome, athletic track or road circuit) or indoors when they train mainly indoors (treadmill, or indoor bike trainer).
After a winter spent running, and riding, indoors… we should have a clear idea about our indoor training zones.
As we move outside, we often experience a heavy dose of spring fever and go bananas with our Green Zone training.
Progressive Run Test
Here’s a workout to help you dial in your outdoor zones.
Find a flat loop that will take ~20 minutes when running Easy.
Run three loops.
Descend the loops (1-3) - each one with a slightly faster average pace
Aim to run as evenly as possible.
Loops are run to effort, keeping an eye on heart rate:
Easy, ~10 bpm below the top of Zone 1
Steady, the border between Zone 1 and Zone 2
Moderately-Hard, the border between Zone 2 and Zone 3
Using the zones above: the athlete would aim for an Easy/Steady/Mod-Hard effort around 115/125/135 bpm.
If you have access to lactate analysis, then set up a testing station at the start/finish of each lap.
Turn off autosplit on your watch (if you use it).
At the end of each lap:
Take a split.
Score the effort (marks out of 5).
Sample lactate.
When the workout is done, pull up the file and extract average/max heart rate per lap. You’ll end up with a data table similar to the one below.
This will let you finetune your heart rates, and paces, at the bottom/top of Zone 2.
If changes are indicated, then adjust zones gradually.
The cool mornings of spring can suppress heart rate response.
As well, a little “testing” excitement (or anxiety) can boost heart rate response.
This workout should be run entirely in your Green Zone.
If you feel yourself transitioning to Tempo / Moderately-Hard then back off.
You can test monthly in order to track your progress and compare to other workout segments.
Tips
Checking Zone 4
While not required, you can add another lap and aim for the Zone 3 / Zone 4 transition (148 bpm in the example above). This will give a look from Zone 1 through to Zone 4.
You’ll end up with ~15 minutes of Tempo so make sure the extra fatigue is worth it.
Your Long Run
As we mentioned in our run chapter, your long run:
Should start Easy (Lap 1 pace).
Can include blocks of Steady (Lap 2 pace).
Should avoid Moderately-Hard (Lap 3 pace).
The above is counterintuitive and you will be tempted to ignore this advice.
Most every amateur I’ve trained with starts at Lap 3 pace and fades to Lap 2 pace - or - makes themselves far more tired than necessary. See our discussion of Catabolic Effect in our Zones Chapter.
Multisporters & Distance Runners
Some ideas to modify the test and make it more specific to your event.
Add a mix of cycling/running so the total session (including the test set) is equal to race duration.
Add 1-7 hours of Easy Endurance before you do the test.
The seven-hour “add” would be for Ironman Athletes wanting to check their durability after a long swim and ride.
Run 30-60 minutes in rolling hills before the test set. This will give an indication of durability. Fade and durability are discussed in our Run Chapter.
These modifications make a nice bridge between General Capacity training and the more challenging Core Pace workouts of Specific Preparation.
To help you decide when to progress to more challenging training… next week, we will share test you can use to assess run durability and the implications of “passing” (or not) the test.
One final tip from John:
I think it is always good if the testing has a training effect and reflects the training period you are in, e.g., doing aerobic testing (Green Zone) during the base training period and doing anaerobic threshold (LT2) testing early in the specific training period.
Part Two of this article continues here.
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