Quality Vs Quantity

I read Ryan's blog last week and saw his heart rate file for his tempo run and thought I would give some thoughts on heart rate during sessions and race's including my own 10k race at Manchester last weekend.

As seen on Ryan's blog it shows him going up to over 170 bpm which can be hard but not also straight forward. Now when I and Mark Draper were out in Morocco we would do 10miles on a Monday night (around 55minutes) which wasn't counted as a 'session' but went above 170 first two weeks which for me is not quite tempo (over 180). Was it hard yes of course, really hard.....no!

This is where it can get a bit complicated, at altitude your breathing system finds it harder than the legs so I don't have to run as fast (hurt the legs) to get the effort of doing a steady run back home. That said by the end of the 5 weeks it wasn't going over 170 on the same run anymore.....was that because I was getting fitter or because I was tired?! That's where mile markers or some sort of time gauge is very helpful, we always used a check point at half way which got faster each Monday run so it was a case of getting used to the altitude and getting fitter but if it had been slower then my body was probably knackered. In simple terms the harder I train the harder it is to get the heart rate up because the legs are tired so you can't run fast enough to stress the breathing system; this is what happened to me on Sunday.

This is the thing with heart rate readings; you have to take other things into account. If I show you a reading of a session over 190 bpm am I training as hard if I show you the same session only 180bpm??...no, because I could be doing 150miles the second time so my legs are finding it really difficult getting up to the speed needed to get a higher hear rate but I'm still working as hard.

This leads me on to the argument of quality Vs quantity and getting the balance right, and on race week this is a key battle. Last weekend at the Manchester 10k I averaged 179bpm because of a bigger mileage than I usually do so the legs were tired,(my personal best was done at average 189bpm) so in theory I have 10bpm to play with, which is about 15seconds per mile for me having taken readings for past 3 years. So when I do ease down the mileage my heart rate in theory will be able to go higher because the legs can move faster and therefore run faster time. The key point of the race which was shown on the heart rate file was I didn't go above 173 for the first 2k as the legs needed time to get into the race but usually I will be up to a high rate within a minute of the gun going off!

In short a high heart rate in training/racing doesn't always mean your training harder, and like wise a low heart rate in training/racing doesn't always mean your not training hard.

Hope this makes sense as I was confusing myself by the end, but having worked with Nick for 3 years sending files back and forth on a weekly basis I can tell you that you have to look at more than just what the heart rate line shows you and we have both learned a lot since getting together.....luckily for me he supplies about 30 different numbers from body strain to training monotony to work out exactly how hard each week was.

I'm off to look at this week's numbers....although I can tell you I have already worked hard without looking!

Simx