As always the MAF Maven says it succinctly. Brevity is the soul of wit. If I could only condense things so well. cmon - I didn't imply we are elites. My point was that we are not nor will we be elites so enjoy running for what it is. We humans tend to complicate things too often. I know I'm guilty of it and when I get out of my own way I find my way. One other point, simply running lots of miles will make you faster even if you do not add anaerobic training. I've seen this in my training last year. So run lots, mostly easy, some hard.
As always the MAF Maven says it succinctly. Brevity is the soul of wit. If I could only condense things so well.
cmon - I didn't imply we are elites. My point was that we are not nor will we be elites so enjoy running for what it is. We humans tend to complicate things too often. I know I'm guilty of it and when I get out of my own way I find my way. One other point, simply running lots of miles will make you faster even if you do not add anaerobic training. I've seen this in my training last year.
So run lots, mostly easy, some hard.
got that.
interesting thing... today I had a stressful day, I still felt the effect 1-2 hours after the stressful events. but then I went out for my planned run and that felt very good. I was too consumed from the day so I couldn't care less about the HRM, I didn't really give a sh*it about what it might say, all I did was set a pace at the start that seemed doable at 150bpm then I just went on. result? lower than ever HR's/AHR didn't know I had this much aerobic base in me
it was a nice run!
copypasting from my training log today because it sums up so well as to what I currently think about MAF/LHR training:
I realized many important things during this easy and short-ish run. 1) if I can get MAF pace to 12:00 for a distance like 10K then I'm going to totally rock in terms of performance at higher HR's compared to what I'm capable of right now at those higher HR's. I would then totally be able to do a 50min 10K without my HR shooting up over 195 (my AT or my threshold of starting to feel like dying). 2) because of this getting to 12:00 or, god forbid, 11:00 would mean tremendous progress. 3) this leads to the conclusion that there is no reason to be impatient. my current 13-14m/mile pace is just fine and in line with what I'd currently be capable of in a 5K or 10K race (if I had to go to a race right now, 5K I'd be able to do in 24mins, 10K maybe 53-55). 4) and so I can just enjoy going on with these MAF miles right now. no time pressure to see the improvement, no nothing. my current task is getting fully comfortable with the MAF zone which I believe I'd already taken a big step forward to on friday when I was able to finish after nearly 2 hours feeling my legs could have gone on quite a bit further. and then...if/when I see consistent 12m/miles then I'll be able to classify that as BIG progress. 5) another important thing: if I see HR going shit, it's okay, I'm just an observer of it, I do not want to try and have an effect on my own HR. it should go as natural as possible. of course at/under MAF. as MAF/MAF-5 is my natural zone right now. BTW, first mile was indeed around 12:00 pace today. the elevation (downhill) for this 1 mile was 16 metres, that is not much at all so we can say it was almost flat. the other mile in the loop (3 loops total) is 18 up, but it somehow feels more uphill than that possibly because it is less evenly distributed. so that slows down my pace overall.
now, a question (or more) is coming up again...
I've completed 3 weeks of MAF with slightly increasing mileage and time. so I plan to decrease mileage/time for the next week, to give some rest - this is just to be on the safe side... my legs are currently itching to go out again, this is funny as it is very late into night now and I already ran 75 minutes today (well, before midnight so it is yesterday now).
anyway, the question is, how to do this decrease exactly? would it be best to just remove the "long run" and this way have only 5 workouts instead of 6? the long run would be about 1:50-2:00 hour:mins.
or should I keep all the 6 workouts and simply decrease the duration by 10-15 mins for each one or so?
you can see my training log if you need info on what I did so far. it is supposedly set to public (let me know if you can't access it).
yay, now I thought of another question!
leading up to question: from previous (pre-MAF) experience I can say with certainty that sustaining 22-23MPW at 163 AHR (MAF+10 for me) was close to the ideal training load for me. weekly time was typically between 4.5 and 5 hours and this was distributed over 4 workouts.
30MPW at 158-163 AHR (varied) (MAF+5, MAF+10) with 5.5 or nearly 6 hours in 5 workouts was a bit tipping over the balance. it was maybe sustainable for 2 weeks without any problems.
and the question is: if I'm doing 30MPW at 150-151 AHR (MAF-3/MAF-2, sometimes MAF-4 or MAF-1), 6.5-7 hours, 6 workouts, is that basically equalling my old 22MPW weeks at MAF+10?
I have a subjective feeling that it is not harder stress wise than the 22MPW ones. but am I right about that I wonder. time wise it is a lot more time, funny.
okay, so no one seems to have any ideas? I decided to just cut the long run (replace it with an extra rest day) and keep the rest the same because a basic principle I've read about is it is the number of workouts that is the biggest load and not the distance or intensity in each one. this coincides with my previous experience.
now, this is only out of cautiousness. I don't feel 6 workouts a week too much. actualyl the load is decreasing, my last 2 runs felt incomplete, not enough distance, not enough load, for my legs. this is a big improvement I feel. because I haven't had that happen much before with the MAF runs (except for short hilly runs that were 3 mile at most). I still think I should do the rest week, as it would be my 4th week. what do you think?
so anyway, this is one sign that MAF'ing is starting to feel totally normal to me now. going slow now does feel all natural in workouts. this does NOT mean that I'm becoming sluggish. actually, after a few days of MAF I initially felt my downhill runs to be crazy fast, now not anymore. they aren't feeling fast at all, but it's nice to run downhill anyways. and when running on flat surface it's natural and feeling neither fast nor slow. so it is quite the opposite of being sluggish. and it's all so full of energy. I'm starting to love the whole thing!
okay, so no one seems to have any ideas? it is quite the opposite of being sluggish. and it's all so full of energy. I'm starting to love the whole thing!
My interpretation of no responses is "it's up to you." Experiment, keep track of your MAF tests and how you are feeling, and it will all work out. Keep going!
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and the question is: if I'm doing 30MPW at 150-151 AHR (MAF-3/MAF-2, sometimes MAF-4 or MAF-1), 6.5-7 hours, 6 workouts, is that basically equalling my old 22MPW weeks at MAF+10? I have a subjective feeling that it is not harder stress wise than the 22MPW ones. but am I right about that I wonder. time wise it is a lot more time, funny.
It appears you may only need to use the stress test log Jimmyb made.
Run until the trail runs out.
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I agree with Jimmy on the "its up to you" as people here tend to teach people how to fish as opposed to giving people fish. To borrow a phrase. Ron is also correct - use the stress table. It will help you better understand.
Now I have a question and please forgive if you've covered this. Why limit your days and or miles? What are you hoping to gain from this?
The reason I ask is that MAF reduces stress and enables you to go farther without impact. In running more miles, we improve. Improve in form, fitness, and so on. Its the injuries caused by overloading that reduces our abilities to improve. This is the beauty of MAF. I run 7 days per week and feel great. Rest days come when I need one or if life gets in the way. Others here run/walk at least as often.
Oh and we don't always check every thread every day so that may be another reason why there is a delay in response. If you need an immediate answer, you can always try the private message system here on RA.
I think you should throw the paper away that has your weeklt workouts written on and just run. Set training plans, in my opinion, will only lead to overtraining and injury.
Take Jimmyb and C-R's advise and listen to your body more then watching your running log totals. Running at or below MAF allows you to run more miles (or minutes) without physically breaking down. If you are feeling good today, run as far or as long as you want. Tomorrow, do it again if your body wants to. If your feeling tired or drained, take a day off. If you end up getting 40 miles this week but can only go 30 next, its totally okay.
I also think you are getting way to technical with all the MAF minus numbers. Thinking about the MAF-2 for X amount of time verses MAF-4 for Y amount of time seems stressful to me and therefor not worth it. Run in a MAF to MAF-10 range and walk if your HR goes over MAF. Try to keep it simple and enjoy your time in your running shoes.
2012 Goals:
5k = sub 22:00
10k = sub 45:00
HM = sub 1:40:00
Run = 2000 miles
Bike = 3000 miles
Swim = 130 miles
thanks for your answers.
as for the stress table, I've mentioned in the other thread that I was still not able to locate it. do you have a direct link to it that actually works? many thanks.
as for limiting the miles... hm, getting confused, I keep seeing the advice on this board that you shouldn't increase your mileage too fast, not more than 10% weekly and 4th week needs a cut back on mileage even if it is all MAF. I actually saw some example table in this forum about how to increase mileage where it increased by 1 mile per week and had a cut back every 4 th week and it went from 15MPW to 30 in like half a year (sorry forgot the exact numbers, the point is it wasn't a big increase), now reading that drove me crazy as it seemed such a slow way to increase load. I'm doing it a bit faster to be honest...
by the way, I had the experience pre-MAF that I was almost doing too many miles (I was stretching my limits a bit). that was 30MPW 5 times a week at around 160bpm (all of them MAF+5 and MAF+10 runs). maybe that also makes me too cautious now. I'm again at 30MPW except it is MAF-2 or so. 1st week 27, 2nd 30, 3rd 31.
also initially it was very hard to get that 27 as it needed a lot of time on my foot and my slow twitchers in legs were not as much used to this, I think it was just about okay. but the 31 last week felt pretty much fine.
so I guess my long winded answer is that I hope to gain better improvement from not doing too much too soon. yes I guess I was surprised to read that even with MAF the load can be too high. maybe for a beginner's legs it can be and that's what I still am.
Burnt toast: wow, we were writing at the same time! you are right, but I like to plan the week. I always only have the plan of one week though. of course I don't try to overstretch it - I would be willing to skip a day if my legs don't want it, but luckily that has yet to happen, hehe.
one more note: I cannot run in MAF-10. and I don't feel like walking more than the warmup. perhaps one day I'll be able to run at MAF-10 too. right now I just set a pace that seems to keep my HR at 150 or so (that's below MAF) and go on with a periodical check whether it drifted away (I seem to have a good feeling for pace). this is a lot less stress this way and enjoyable!
I'm not sure what you meant by X and Y time though!
I agree totally. Trying to follow day-by-day plans will have you doing something because you think you should rather than because it's what's best for you that day. Life gets in the way too and if you're inflexible about your plans, you'll stress yourself out trying to fit the scheduled workout in when you have some other obligation. This works the other way as well. You cut short on a day when you feel good because your schedule told you to -- i.e., "Don't waste a good day."
Running slow reduces the stress associated with running fast. Seems obvious, right? You can use that stress reduction to pay back a debt and recover (I'm talking about the kind of systemic recover that takes weeks or months) or use it to increase training stress in another direction -- i.e., building miles/hours. I'm pretty sure you'rein the latter camp (i.e., not coming off a period of overtraining) and your looking to improve your race times. So just slowly, carefully build your miles to what your schedule will accommodate while letting your MAF test combined with how you feel guide you on whether your handling the load.
After you can easily handle as many slow miles as you can fit in your schedule, then it's time to go a bit faster. In the past I've transitioned to book schedules, but I see that was a mistake too. I can't handle tempo, intervals, and a long run in the same week. Maybe when I was 25, but not now. Everyone is different. Experiment. Personally, I've found that a "medium" run (HR in the 150s) every 3 days with easy (< MAF) in between gives me a nice cycle of stress and recovery. No heroic workouts, but just steady improvement.
No heroic workouts, but just steady improvement.
This is a great statement coming from a guy that runs an easy workout about 3 mpm slower then his 5k PR pace. Thats really slow to anyone other then a LHR training devotee. BTW, I can only dream of a low 20 minute 5k and a sub 1:30 HM right now but hopefully with a few years of LHR, it'll happen.
Cmon2,
leading up to question: from previous (pre-MAF) experience I can say with certainty that sustaining 22-23MPW at 163 AHR (MAF+10 for me) was close to the ideal training load for me. weekly time was typically between 4.5 and 5 hours (X time) and this was distributed over 4 workouts. 30MPW at 158-163 AHR (varied) (MAF+5, MAF+10) with 5.5 or nearly 6 hours (Y time) in 5 workouts was a bit tipping over the balance. it was maybe sustainable for 2 weeks without any problems.
leading up to question: from previous (pre-MAF) experience I can say with certainty that sustaining 22-23MPW at 163 AHR (MAF+10 for me) was close to the ideal training load for me. weekly time was typically between 4.5 and 5 hours (X time) and this was distributed over 4 workouts.
30MPW at 158-163 AHR (varied) (MAF+5, MAF+10) with 5.5 or nearly 6 hours (Y time) in 5 workouts was a bit tipping over the balance. it was maybe sustainable for 2 weeks without any problems.
The bold in your quote is what I meant by X and Y time. As far as only increasing time or mileage by 10% per week is concerned I feel that doesn't really apply to a LHR regimen. I think it applies more to a typical training routine that incorporates speed, tempo and hill training, which of course develops a greater amount of stress on the body. The 10% rule helps to limit the cumulative effects of the increased stress over time to give your body a chance to deal with it without breaking down.
This is a great statement coming from a guy that runs an easy workout about 3 mpm slower then his 5k PR pace. Thats really slow to anyone other then a LHR training devotee. BTW, I can only dream of a low 20 minute 5k and a sub 1:30 HM right now but hopefully with a few years of LHR, it'll happen
Put in the miles and it will happen. Like I said above, I think you have to put some effort (i.e. above MAF) into your runs at some point to improve, but you can improve for years cycling between periods of LHR and harder stuff. I started in Jan 05 and run an April 10 miler as my annual fitness test, running 1:24:49, 1:19:49, 1:09:49, 1:08:49, and 1:06:43. (Not sure why I like :49 so much.) I thought I was plateauing in 2008 but dropped 2 minutes the next year, so I'm hopeful this will continue for a while and will keep plugging away even if I hit a PR dry spell.
thanks for the many replies. neat discussion.
as for following a week plan... I do that planning stuff because really every day feels the same to me. (I don't have many time based tasks during the day. I'm sort of a student. but one without exams as I've already completed all of them, I'm working on final thesis and whenever I finish that I'll get my degree. and as for earning my living my current job is of a freelance kind and I work from home). so, if I don't make plans then I won't have the slightest idea about what to do, hehe. basically I try to vary "hard" and "easy" days, of course when running under MAF then these just differ in the duration really. so the planning is useful to make sure I get the easy day after a hard day. and so on. the other thing why I find planning useful is it helps me increase mileage in a cautious way.
yes I'm sure this won't fit people who have a tighter daily schedule.
ah the X and Y time, thanks I understand that one now. I didn't really follow the time before MAF, I went by mileage and I just looked up my old logs to calculate the X time and the AHR for it. the AHR was way over MAF as I wasn't doing MAF training back then. anyway the only reason why I mentioned times was to show what kind of load I was able to handle when over MAF and what kind of load was a bit in the category of "almost too much". so don't worry, I don't care about MAF-2 vs MAF-4, both are fine to me, I'm not THAT geeky.
so alright, are you (Burnt Toast) saying that when training under MAF you can do as many miles as you want... hmmm neat, well, can't be that simple, hehe, can it? sounds too nice to be true. though this coincides with what I'm feeling so far about this training. (BTW, I just got the Maffetone Method, but didn't read through it yet. just the first few chapters so far.)
gregw, wow, those times look great. :drooling: will your April 10 miler be even better this year? and yes I'm in the latter camp that just needs to improve. though not my race times as I've never been in a race. I started the whole running business 6 months ago. I did my own little "races" but none of them were run at a top effort except for my first 5K a few months ago. so I do not really have any official PR's, lol. the 5K one is way out of date, I already ran a better one at a HR that was very far from max. load. hehe.
anyway, I'll go on with MAF'ing, I really love it by now. I think I'm improving already. and my final decision is I'll make this week easier by skipping the long run, it just still feels like a nice idea - mentally perhaps. I will then go back to increasing mileage more from next week, will make the long run longer as well. wonder where the load will plateau... 50MPW seems nice but very far at the moment.
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