ScriptCal
I’ve been diligently training below MAF for 12 weeks, where I’ve kept my HR average at 128 or129 for virtually all my runs (180 – age – 5). I took an extra 5 beats off due to an ITBS problem that I’ve had trouble shaking. Virtually every mile of every run was at 128 or 129 average with maxes of 132-134. I didn’t eat at least 2.5 hours before every run. The good news is that I have gone from a sometimes painful 20-24 miles/week to a relatively pain free 40 miles last week with a conservative progression including recovery weeks. I also have not been sick during this time (may or may not be relevant). Without any further information, the above indicates to me that the program has done me good. I am disappointed in my improvement level, however. My mid-day 5 mile runs began in the neighborhood of 11:40/mile, and haven’t changed over the 12 weeks. There is some variance from run to run, but no real slope of the curve. Also, my early morning medium long run went from about 11:00/mile to about 11:20/mile to about 11:00/mile through the 12 weeks. One bright spot is that my weekly long runs have gone from about 12:00/mile to about 11:40/mile even with the length of the run increasing – the flattening occurring in the second half miles. Perhaps my expectations were too high, but expected to drop at least 30-45 seconds/mile for all the above runs (and my hope was for much more). Another good result was that I proved to myself that I had the patience to run at the above slow paces. Before this experiment I had never run a mile slower than about 10:00/mile (and never slower than 9:00/mile if it wasn’t a recovery run). I know now that I can force myself to hold back during training. I have to admit that this was what dieting must feel like – always having to control the urge to quit the program/fall off the wagon. I treated myself to a fun run today where I disabled the HR alarm and never looked at my HR (I missed how fun that could be – I felt like a giddy little girl). I went out at what I used to call a “recovery” run pace and kept my breathing no faster than 3-4 steps in and 3-4 steps out, which is recommended in Jack Daniels’ book. Interestingly, my pace accelerated throughout the run (which is typical for me – I’ll have to control that in the future) and my HR climbed throughout the run, but after downloading my Garmin 305 graphs I noticed that my HR was very smooth compared to jerky graph of any of my runs in the previous weeks. Also over the last 2-3 miles my max was just a couple beats above my ave. For the future, I plan on raising my target 5 and then probably 10 beats starting with my shorter runs (moving up the toothpaste tube). I’m going to add some faster hill runs with very slow running recoveries. I also want to add some tempo runs which I can use to directly compare against the condition I was in before MAF training (I have no recent races). I know the above may not meet with approval by many here, but I’ve got to get back to the joy. Thanks for listening.
I noticed that we run approximately the same MAF pace, so I know how slow it must feel to you. But, it finally is just fast enough so that I feel like I am running and not "creeping" as someone had termed it (which made me laugh, because that is a good description of how it first felt). I also noticed that we are about the same age, so our MAF HR is about the same. But, what is different is that it looks like you have been running longer and it also looks like you run better times than I do. Which means that your MAF pace is relatively slow right now. Your case just reminds me of some things I read in Jesse's FAQ. He said something to the affect that the people who would most benefit from this training are the same people who will be the most frustrated by it early on and who also may have to do it longer to see the benefits. ... Although I am running slow, and hardly breathing and hardly sweating, I know that I am really focusing on the aerobic system because my legs still get fatigued. In fact, if I go faster it actually feels easier, but I sense that it is because I am allowing my well developed anaerobic system to kick in and assist a lot more. So, I sort of look at it like I am a weight lifter who is just focusing on a certain set of muscles right now.
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