Thoughts after 100 Miles of Low Heart-Rate Training
After going down a YouTube rabbit hole on heart-rate training over the holidays, beginning January 1st of this year I started only running at aerobic (a.k.a. zone 2 or MAF) pace. As of today I’ve done 100 miles at this pace. Here are my thoughts on how it’s going.
Staying in the aerobic zone means never venturing up into anaerobic pace, so the body doesn’t generate lactic acid during training (which runners know is a byproduct of muscles generating energy anaerobically, leading to the dreaded bonk).
As someone with an impulsive need to always push my running pace to the limit (and therefore injure myself all the time), having this crystal-clear limitation has been fantastic in keeping me healthy and consistent in my running. I have never enjoyed training this much. I have felt fantastic. After most runs now I feel like I could do the same run over again easily.
The one big unanswered question is: can I run a PR doing this style of training? It’s a question I can’t really answer until I fully recover my knee and get back to racing. I can say that my maximum aerobic (or MAF) pace — as measured by a MAF test (running 3mi or 5mi at MAF pace on a track) — has rapidly decreased from 11min/mi to 10 to 9 just in one month.
My plan going forward is to keep doing Zone2 running at around 15-20 miles a week for the next 2-3 months. If my knee is fully recovered by then, I want to do a 5k or 10k race to test my fitness. If I’m not happy with the results, I will start to add in some light speedwork as necessary.