HM Heart Rate Trend

While I focus a lot on the heart rate, my pace has been reducing tremendously recently.  My hope for training with heart rate (MAF) can help to increase weekly mileage without injury was wrong.  I have been suffering from Plantar Fasciitis for the last 2 months.  This makes the coming PBIM to be challenging as I have reduced my weekly mileage to less than 10km/week for almost the whole October.

However, I took the chance to summary my HM pace trend together with HeartRate as follows:-

As the pace slower recently the average heartrate also reducing.  I will interpret this as no much change in terms of heart rate vs pace.

Plotting heartrate vs pace will get the graph below:-

Hopefully, to run at 170bpm I can be with pace around 6 min/km.

MAF Heart Rate Training

After reading the articles regarding MAF training (https://philmaffetone.com/want-speed-slow-down/) and with the hope that I can increase my weekly mileage to around 40km per week without injury, I had decided to following this method of training for 3 month while increasing weekly mileage. By following the formula of 180-age as the max MAF training heart rate, I find it very difficult to run at 140 bpm. With my run of longer than 10 km, it is very difficult to keep below the max MAF heart rate without a walking rest.  A few days before end of my 1st month of trying, I came across another article from StrengthRunning (http://strengthrunning.com/2015/02/maffetone-method-and-base-training/).  So, I have decided to deviate a bit from MAF training recommended by Dr. Maffetone by adding in strides (suggested by http://strengthrunning.com/2018/02/base-training-fundamentals/) at the end of the easy run.

Following is my running using MAF method for 1st month (analyzed using http://www.graphmyrun.com/).

From above charts, Jan 23 and Jan 25 runs were with wider spread of heart rate due to slightly hilly routes and I was just learning to run by heart rate.  However, starting Feb, it seems that I can control my heart rate throughout the run better.  The higher max heart rate in Jan 30 run was due to hilly route.


For 2nd month, I have decided to modify the MAF to include strides in the training.

Here's my base training plan in the coming month:-

• Keep the max MAF heart rate as base.
• Add strides at the end of run with max time of 10%, ie. if I plan a run of 40 mins, I will add in 4 mins of strides.  This to ensure 90% of training time is within max MAF heart rate.
• Add in strength training and stretches in my weekly schedule!

The training zones on my first run with strides is as below:-

Still able to keep 90% of time within max MAF heart rate with 20s strides (40 steps, ~ 100m) for 5 times.  Will practice the above for 2 runs during weekday and long run during weekend.

My new (again) Heart Rate Training Zone

I have been having difficulty to determine my max heart rate.  Initially back in Dec 2012, I concluded that my max heard rate was 188 bpm.  Then, back in Jan 2015, I noticed my heart rate of 196bpm and thus determine that my max heart rate was 196 bpm.  However, starting 2016 and 2017, I started to read my heart rate of even more than 200 bpm, which I started to doubt the reading.

After talking to a colleague who has been running for more than 30 years, he told me that very likely my heart rate monitoring device is having issue.  I didn't immediately got a new heart rate monitoring belt until I misplaced it.  I then get myself a new heart rate monitoring belt.

With the new belt, I found out that my heart rate is more consistent now.  With the very high stress in the Station 4 running of Penang Round Island Relay with uphill, I found my heart rate of 186 bpm.  After checking the old post in 2012, where heart rate monitoring belt was new, to know that my max heart rate was determined as 188 bpm, I now think that my max heart rate of 186 bpm is more accurate now.

With that, the new training zones are with follows:-

Easy Run (recovery zone)
Pace: 1~2 mins slower than marathon pace
% Max hear rate: 65 to 78% [120~144 bpm]
Perceived Effort: 3 to 4/easy
Talk Test: Complete conversation
Training Run (aerobic zone)
Pace: Marathon pace or slightly slower
% Max hear rate: 80 to 89% [148~165 bpm]
Perceived Effort: 5 to 6/moderate
Talk Test: Full sentences

Tempo Run (threshold zone)
Pace: 20 to 30 seconds slower than 5-K pace
% Max hear rate: 88 to 92% [163~170 bpm]
Perceived Effort: 7 to 8/hard
Talk Test: A few words at a time
Intervals Run (VO2 max zone)
Pace: Mile to 5-K pace or faster
% Max hear rate: 95 to 100% [176~185 bpm]
Perceived Effort: 9/very hard
Talk Test: Can't... talk... must... run...

I will be focusing to increase my weekly mileage to be more than 40 km before working on speed, I will be mostly training at Easy pace with max heart rate of ~144 bpm.  Only with I managed to increase my weekly mileage to be more than 40 km or around that, I will pick a day to train for Training Run and Tempo Run.  Again, during that time, has to work harder on the core strength too!

Concluding 2017 (7th year of running - my 1st FM)

After 7 years of running I finally tried out a full marathon.  It is not a pleasant one that cause me to be very demotivating in running for a few months before I start to like training again.  I guess this could be over train syndrome.  I didn't force myself to hard to get back to my normal weekly mileage of 20km and my weekly mileage drop for a few weeks or months.  Another possibility could be the change in my life style since I didn't take up a full time job this year and still looking to get a balance in my life.
The above caused me to run my worse HM in Jul and Nov.
All of these could pass now as I started to get exited in training again and looking at logging 20km consistently again as soon as I could.
I concluded the year with another Penang Round Island Relay, which initially I wasn't intended to join.  I joined the relay for the pass 2 years and found that very tiring to start my journey as early as 3am and ended around 2pm in the afternoon.  For this year, I just participated in my run and went back home for rest before going to the finish line again when the team finished.  I was running in Station #4 with up hill that not much people like to run.  However, it turned out not too bad to me to be able to run 5:49min/km pace, which I am very satisfy with despite having high fever the week before with less than 10 km per week for the last 2 weeks.
As I was working hard to cut down my races, I finally managed to do it this year due to other commitment.  For the whole 2017, I just joined 5 races including my 1st FM.  There were 2 races that I wanted to join but not able to due to schedule conflict.


Summary for 2017:-

1. Joined my 1st FM.  Concluded that I need more training to participate in FM.
2. Clocking my my worst HM timing which could be due to insufficient training or age!
3. Participated in only 5 races, vs 13 races in 2016!

My plan for 2018:-

1. Increase weekly mileage.  Slowly increase my mileage to ~30km per week.
2. Increase my weekly running days to 4 days a week.
3. Join less races.  Only focus on HM locally, or charity race, hoefully 5~6 races should be good enough.