I'm so frustrated right now. (Read 1448 times)

It seems very apparent to me that most of my easy runs that I have been doing are too fast. I decided to wear my hrm out today since going by feel is not working for me (purely mental Im sure) and I went nice and easy and stayed at about 83% on my hrm- however, that pace to me was easy any slower and I mine as well walk. I felt good and could have ran however long at that pace (which is the way it should be for an easy pace- correct?) Which brought me doing just over 8 miles today at a horrid pace. I felt so defeated because the whole damn time I just wanted to run faster because I could not wrap my narrow brain around easy is easy..not kinda fast, not faster than fast but slower than race pace, but easy. It felt frustrating to me to know that all this time most of my runs have probably been a Tempo pace for me. The thing Is I never really felt burned out after my runs and always felt good and never felt like I was gasping for air while running those runs so I always assumed those where my slow easy runs, but if you look at my race time my pace is not that much different than my presumed easy runs. kwim? However, I did a mock 5k the other week and my pace was something like 9 something. Im too lazy to go back and look- so should I base my paces on that race time if I go by McMillan? My husband swears Im overthinking everything too much,but I want to be sure that I am doing this right. Prior to this I would just run to run, but now that I want to race it seems that everything has a time and place.

if you have a HRM why not base your paces on that? If you have been running too fast and never really ever ran easy then your areobic fitness is probably not in line with your anaerobic fitness (SP)... think of it this way. You have an area you have identified as week. And the thing is the training to improve it is very laid back and easy and you can get some nice gains from it.

I wish I could zone out, all the time. The pace I run at while, zoned out, I consider my easy pace. Someday's there may be as much as a 20 second per kilometer difference. Well some days are better than others, so my easy pace does vary. If you can zone out at a certain pace, it would have to be considered easy I would think.

Here is the thing, is it really too fast if I feel okay whilst running? ...

Maybe. The way to tell for sure would be a good VO2 test where you get Respiratory Quotient (RQ) aka Respiratory Exchange Ratio (RER) as a function of Heart Rate (HR). Other than that, you can try various formulas - I tried 5 and got different training HR/zones from each, so I picked one in the middle and it worked ok for me. Check out the Low HR Training user group. A sticky thread with "boilerplate" in the title will have some stuff from Mr "formationflier", and there is a wealth of info in his FAQ about this. A case in point is me. After taking over 3 month off I started up in mid-Feb again. It was hard/impossible for me to run continuously at my most-fat-calories-burned-per-hour point, where I'm burning 80% fat and 20% carbs. I would run until the HR went above a bit and then walk until it came back down below a bit. It was discouraging. A couple weeks later I was walking less and spending more hours on the road/trails. Three weeks after that I had more than doubled my hours and did a 3+ hour run at my target HR with no walking at all - the HR just stabilized there and stayed steady. Also, my per-mile pace at that HR had gone down by over 1 min/mile. It is still going down. If it goes down at that low HR, it will go down at higher HRs once a little faster running gets thrown into the mix. So if you give it a try, don't get too discouraged at first. Maybe it will work for you too... Good running, Gino

Denise, I'm in a similar situation since I wore my HRM for the first time yesterday. I went out for my longer run and pretty soon the alarm was going off, and so it did about half way. I turned it off on my way back because I was having to walk at a normal pace to keep it down . On my way back I was keeping my HR below 150 at my normal pace. The difference between your runs and mine is that I'm sure I'm not going too fast. When I got home I was frustrated as well, so I searched for something to read on this site and I came across this article:

http://www.rrca.org/resources/articles/slowdown.html

it does put my training HR at 144, I can do that, but I cannot do 132 unless I'm just going for a stroll. There is more information and discussion in the Low HR Training group, which I'll be checking out:

http://www.runningahead.com/groups/LOWHRTR/

Gotta go, back I'll be back,

Thanks Chickadee, I will look at those articles later on tonight. So you said on your way back on your run you were able to run at your normal pace and keep your hr where it should be without having to stop and walk?

It's not that I am using it as the be all and end all. My recent race time just had me thinking about it is all. I had to wonder if I really am doing myself justice and training properly. I tend to be an over achiever by nature and with running I may be doing the same as well. I train alone. I don't run with anyone and I really have to wonder at times If I am really working to the best of my potential. The thing that really made me think with this race was that my pace seemed to not be too much different than my regular training runs. Which led me to a possible "Aha" moment. OR perhaps I just did not push myself hard enough . This is where finding my training zones comes into play. I only have me to go against and yeah, I can go back and look through my logs to compare, but it still leaves me with a big ol' question mark as to whether or not I maximizing or not. I know, I realize, how do you run wrong? Just freaking run..

My husband swears Im overthinking everything too much

I agree. But I am biased. I don't believe in low HR training. It never worked for me. Made me slower. I don't believe in using McMillan or any other person/guru to predict how fast or slow I should run. I just run. Fast if I feel good, slow if not. I don't train in HR zones either. My paces vary in any week from day to day, run to run. I do wear a HRM religiously but only as a feedback mechanism so I can objectively tell how hard I am working because going 100% on feel can sometimes be misleading. My HRM is most valuable when I need to back off and have a higher than normal HR at a given pace. For that purpose alone, I will wear it. You're correct, in that you should vary paces but it will happen naturally if you let it. But don't listen to me. I never read "the book". What's my point? Listen to your body and go with how your legs feel. You need to finish some runs pretty winded if you hope to race faster. Train fast, race fast. Simple. But don't overdo it. You HAVE to incorporate easy days or complete days off. If you're not feeling somewhat tired after a tempo run, it wasn't a tempo run.