Me "I'll come home earlier if my heart rate is high" Dad "but what would you do in a race?"

Me "I'll come home earlier if my heart rate is high"
Dad "but what would you do in a race?"

This was a conversation I had with my Dad just before a long Sunday run. He was a runner in the 80s and a good runner too.

This reply from my Dad made me smile to begin with because I imagined a silly scenario of looking at my heart rate in a race and giving up due to seeing a number on a device. It just wouldn't happen, for me, so I initially thought.

My Dad and I then chatted a bit about it. He didn't have technology in the 80s and in some ways that was an advantage; he knew how to listen to his body. But in other ways it was a disadvantage, e.g. he didn't always know what his body was saying.

I told him about my last race which was 4 miles. I wore my heart rate monitor and my HR was 195+ most of the time. I didn't look at it in the race but had I what would I have done? Probably nothing because the race was short.

What about an Ultra race of 7 hours, should I let my heart rate influence me? I would say yes, but only a little bit. I don't have all the answers but I'm enjoying the lessons.

Thanks for reading. Let me know your thoughts.

Maximum Aerobic Function (MAF) Training Update part 4

http://zachbitter.com/blog/

Check out the above link for Zach's blog post on coaching me.

The training is going well. Still building up the MAF miles. MAF is best explained on Doctor Phil Maffetone's website here:
https://philmaffetone.com/want-speed-slow-down/

I'm now up to about 75 miles per week at a MAF effort. I'm hoping to put in two weeks of 80 miles but I'll see how it goes. It's great having Zach to coach me. I've not had a coach before and previously I would have done a lot more slow / recovery miles. That's the beauty of MAF training. It doesn't hammer the body too much and so the "recovery" runs are reduced. I listen to my body and take a recovery run when needed. I like the expression Zach told me for my run yesterday:

"take what the body gives you".

Last weekend I raced a short distance (for an Ultra runner), it was five miles on the road. Considering I hadn't done any interval /speed work I still managed a pace of 5m22s per mile for 5miles. That was a confidence boost because my marathon I did a month ago was a bit slower than I expected (2h37m).

Thank you for reading yet another running blog!

Keep running.

Daniel

Maximum Aerobic Function update

As you may know I've been running MAF since Christmas day! So about 2 months. I've stuck with it. No intervals, no tempos, just MAF or slower. The main goal is a 100km in May. I've been very tempted to do 8x800, my favorite interval session, but resisted.

Last weekend I raced a half marathon in 1h13m, my forth fastest time, ever, and I've done 16 of them. I'm pleased with that considering the fact that I have not ran at that pace, 5m33s a mile, since mid December (apart from one 4 mile race).

If the half was my main goal I would have thrown in a couple of tempo runs and I don't think it would have taken many to get a personal best. Hopefully this MAF training will continue to suit me. Next up is a marathon in 3 weeks.Hopefully a PB there because MAF training is better suited to the longer stuff.