Low HR Training

1

Cardiac Drift and Pace Decay (Read 192 times)

Durt


    I've seen this topic pop up elsewhere and thought it would make for some interesting discussion here. I'm in week 8 of LHR training and have seen some interesting results, particularly in this area. My speed is still slow at best, but I've noticed significant improvements in dealing with cardiac drift and significant pace decay. For example, during week one I could only sustain running for about 3 hours before my heart rate would drift up to the point that it would interfere with a running pace. Two days ago, I completed a trail 50K in under 7 hours (walking hills, and taking one 3 mile walk after 25K), and my heart rate remained stable the entire time. The course was 10 loops on a 5K trail, and I did begin to see progressive pace decay on the last 4 laps, but my heart rate never got too jumpy. Seems like this is one metric that is often kinda overlooked. Just wondering what everyone else's experiences have been with this?
    BeeRunB


      Cardiac drift has been brought up before. It really doesn't need to be thought about in this training as the rule is to keep below a certain HR ceiling, drift or not. Obviously, the less drift the better in terms of maintaining a faster training pace. Proper hydration is one way to control it. Sometimes it is lactate that causes the spike, not drift. But since it is difficult to know which it is, you just keep going, and keep under the ceiling. Taking your slowing down lumps. Sounds like you are doing well. --Jimmy