Over 50's club

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LazyDaisy Apr 2018 9:55am, 9 Apr 2018 22,057 posts	0 LazyDaisy I'm so glad I'm not the only one!
struthious Apr 2018 9:58am, 9 Apr 2018 1,064 posts	0 struthious Shunters United yayy
steve45 Apr 2018 10:34am, 9 Apr 2018 2,482 posts	0 steve45 In the good old days when I started running (forty years ago this summer) my heart rate wasn't something I concerned myself about--I would run so bloody hard that my chest would burn! My breathing was the main indicator of whether I could carry on or collapse! It gave results but I was kind of young (30 ish) and I never gave a thought about my heart being over stressed. Sometimes in running club races back then several people would throw up at the end of a distance race because so much had been put into it. It's obviously safer and smarter to use a HRM periodically. On the HR thread a discussion also emerged about HR variability being more important than HR per se. There seemed to be reasonable justification and evidence for considering that too but...but...really a lot of the stuff on that level spoils the basic enjoyment of running for me. It's probably more relevant for the fast runners who are climbing the ladder towards greater things maybe.
Velociraptor Apr 2018 10:47am, 9 Apr 2018 38,076 posts	0 Velociraptor My attempt at HR training certainly spoiled my enjoyment of running. Fortunately, I had enough sense to ditch the HRM and go back to using perceived effort. Eleven years on, I haven't looked back and thought, "Parker and his disciples were right."
Canute Apr 2018 11:11am, 9 Apr 2018 1,869 posts	0 Canute While the cold weather is a large factor in constriction of blood to skin and therefore of the need to open capillaries to the skin at the start of a race, I think that the opening of capillaries to muscle is largely determined by the need to provide a very large increase in the supply blood to the muscles, irrespective of air temperature. Therefore there is noticeable splanchnic shunting even in warm weather, but the muscle effect occurs quickly and overall equilibrium is usually reached more quickly in warm weather. With regard to the passions on Fetch a few years ago, I think that was due to widespread passion in the recreational running community, largely fuelled by a recognition of the frequency of running injuries. The good thing was that many people recognized that the way you trained and the way ran played a part in injury risk. Unfortunately some of the ideas in that era were based more on faith than on understanding of biology and physics, and this led to a lot of heated argument. Fortunately over the past decade, a more realistic understanding of the issues has gradually taken hold and the heat has largely dissipated. Among the good outcomes of that era is a much clearer recognition of the potentially damaging effect of over-striding. There has also been a much clearer recognition that with regard to optimum training, people differ and one size does not fit all. Very few elite athletes got caught up in the faith-based hype. Ironically, in my opinion, JHuff was possibly one of the most seriously affected of the elites. In 2002, he was a sub 4 minute miler, with an optimistic though nonetheless realistic ambition of selection for the 2004 Olympics. There are of course many reasons why a runner’s Olympic ambitions come to nothing, but I think that getting side-tracked by enthusiasm for Pose was one factor in his case. If he had has spent more time doing plyometric drills than practicing Change of Stance he might have developed a more powerful push-off from stance, and even more importantly, if he had focused more on developing aerobic capacity rather than on running style, he might have increased his chances of getting to Athens.
Flatlander Apr 2018 11:13am, 9 Apr 2018 1,102 posts	0 Flatlander I've only started using my Garmin HR monitor for the last couple of years. For the 40 odd years of running before that I went by perceived effort. Using HR and PE together now, it's remarkable how well the two tie in with each other for me, which shows that running experience counts for a lot ............... Who needs gadgets and science ...........?
Canute Apr 2018 12:56pm, 9 Apr 2018 1,870 posts	0 Canute I personally find respiratory effort is a more reliable estimate of body stress than HR. For many people, once they are moderately fit, HR is a reasonably reliable indicator during aerobic running in the time window after the initial splanchnic shunting equilibrium has been established until the point where the circulating inflammatory molecules (generated by muscle damage, heat stress and also to gut stress due to prolonged splanchnic shunting) cause HR to rise. This upwards drift begins after anything from 30 minutes to several hours of running, depending on how fit you are and how fast you are running. For people who are not even moderately fit, HR is rarely a reliable estimate during the early phase of a training program because cardiac stroke volume is changing too much. (Cardiac output is the product of HR x stroke volume).
Canute Apr 2018 1:09pm, 9 Apr 2018 1,871 posts	0 Canute I should add that during a very long run, rising HR at constant pace is potentially a useful indicator of stress, but the brain’s inbuilt stress detection mechanisms are actually more useful than either HR or respiratory effort at that stage. Your brain and perhaps also your gut usually tells you when you might be getting into the danger zone. In fact your brain is probably too conservative, but until you have trained your brain well, it is better to listen to what your brain tells you.
LazyDaisy Apr 2018 1:22pm, 9 Apr 2018 22,059 posts	0 LazyDaisy By 'danger zone' Canute do you mean in danger of having a cardiac event, or doing serious damage to yourself, or just 'danger of diminishing returns ie increasing effort for lessening ability to keep running'? Occasionally on Half marathon and 10 mile races (I don't do anything longer) I have felt the gut stress and have taken walking breaks (which has the effect of allowsing my heart rate to drop again, although I don't actively watch that, I just observe it from the Garmin data afterwards. Would I be at some sort of risk if I just kept running? I should say that I increasingly run these races at a pace well within my comfort zone rather than 'eyeballs out'. Perhaps my brain's 'stress detection mechanisms' are a bit over-sensitive!
Canute Apr 2018 1:59pm, 9 Apr 2018 1,872 posts	0 Canute By 'danger zone' I mean the level where the stress generated by the run results in a sustained deterioration of your fitness and well being (i.e. what is usually called an 'over-trained state'; this might last for weeks or months depending on how much you over-did it). While I use respiratory rate during a run as an index of effort during a run, I use the recovery rate in the following few days as an index of the cumulative stress of an event. Provided you are recovering well from events, you are probably not doing harm. I consider the evidence indicates that racing a marathon at maximum effort is enough to induce an over -trained state in many people. Therefore, I think it should only be attempted occasionally (eg once or twice a year.) The likelihood of heart attack is very difficult to predict. It possibly depends on existing microscopic damage to the heart. That might depend on previous episodes of 'over-training' but that is only a speculation. The evidence regarding cardiac damage from strenuous running is still controversial. Nonetheless it is the reason I never did more than two very strenuous races in a year.