I ran a solo 5k time trial on the track last Saturday, and the most interesting thing about it wasn’t the time. It was my heart rate. (I ran around 18:10)
For about ten weeks now I’ve been doing three threshold sessions a week, all of it controlled, all of it sub-threshold, heart rate capped. I can run that sub-threshold pace at around 155 to 160 pretty comfortably now.
See previous blog for more detail
But in the time trial, when I went out and tried to push, I wasn’t much higher than that. Mid-160s for most of it, 169 at the very end. Not a lot faster or higher than what I’ve been running my workouts at.
I think what’s happened is I’ve gotten really efficient at that 160 heart rate, and less efficient above it. Which makes sense — you get good at what you practice, and I haven’t practiced anything above threshold in two and a half months.
A few caveats before I read too much into it. It was a solo time trial, which is hard to run well on your own. It came at the end of essentially two weeks of camping with family. And it was the third quality session of a week that already had two of my biggest workouts in it — I wanted it that way, to see where I was naturally at without a big taper, but it definitely limited how fast I ran. So it’s not perfect data.
What I’m going to do about it
I’m adding 200s. Essentially Bakken’s 45/15 drill — short intervals with short rest — but run at 200 meters instead of by time.
The important part is the cap. Last time I did 200s I got down to 37 seconds, which is roughly 15:25 5k pace. I don’t race 15:25. So this time I’m capping them at 40 seconds, which is about 16:45 to 17:00 pace — around where I think I could actually race right now on a good day. Not running a whole lot faster than threshold, just a little quicker, and getting the habit back of running at that pace at all.
I’m going to drip load them in — a few at the end of a Saturday session rather than making it a whole new workout. Bakken talks about how injuries happen during transitions, and that fits my own history well enough. I usually just jump straight into things. This time I want the transition to be small.
The tension
I’ve discovered I can do this threshold work repeatedly, week after week, and my heels handle it. That’s been the big win of the summer. But the faster stuff is more of a risk. The one session where I felt closest to the edge all summer was those 200s at 37 seconds. Hills have been a bit triggering for my lower legs too.
So I’m trying to add the thing I’m missing without losing the thing that’s been working. Capped pace, small doses, and paying close attention.
That’s the experiment for the next eight weeks or so, until I take a week off running for a meditation retreat in mid-October. I’ll run one or two 5ks between now and then – Probably parkruns in Victoria, BC.
