HADD training plan

Thanks Brian.

Agreed re. test stiffness...if this is the mini-test I don't want to try the maxi-test anytime soon!

Hi Rodders, welcome back to the RW Fred, and welcome to the Church of Hadd. Forgive me but I work on average of max rather than working HR, so my figures may differ a little from yours. I would say 125 would be an ideal start point, and rather than build on the HR, it would be more productive to build on time.

125 is above 65% so you are working in the lower zone. If I were you I would keep to HRav 125, and build the runs slowly to 70mins, and 90mins long run. I would imagine you should be able to build to a 6 run week, within 6 weeks, with the week looking something like:

45mins-70mins-60mins-45mins-70-mins-rest-90mins.

Good luck!

I'm looking forward to being able to run (as opposed to walking) at some of these low heart rates...especially after my experience of today's first mini-test.

For the test I had a nice springy 400m running track all to myself.  Highlights are:

• 2400m @ 120 BPM - No time.  I just couldn't keep my HR down to 120 BPM so after a couple of laps I aborted and moved to 130
• 2400m @ 130 BPM - 17:05
• 2400m @ 140 BPM - 15:57
• 2400m @ 150 BPM - 14:17
• 2400m @ 160 BPM - 13:05

I was surprised and a bit disappointed that I couldn't knock-out 6 laps at 120 BPM.  Over the years I have done probably 90% of my running at around 160 BPM so maybe its not surprising that I should struggle to tap this unexplored part of my tube.  Hopefully there's still some usable paste in there...somewhere.

As the HR went up so the running felt a lot more natural...although I still struggled to keep to 130 BPM for my bottom (completed) set.  Average was probably 133-134.  From 140 onwards it was easy to control the HR to within +/- 1 or 2 BPM.

The running itself felt nice and relaxed at 140 and beyond.  I was able to breath 3 in 3 out all the way to the end and wasn't out of puff.  I had time to do a 170 BPM set but just wasn't sure what the point would be.

So, baseline set.  As we say at work "there's plenty to go at". 

Let's see what the training brings.

Lamb Chop, are you sure your max is ~ 185? I'd be surprised if that was the case when you have done most of your running in the 160's.

Have you kept your race data? ie. have you HRav figures from races you have done?

This is another way of working out your zones.

From your 2.4k test, I would presume that your max is more likely to be at least mid 190s.

A max test is a tough session. Have you a race coming up? If not, it's either 4 or 5 times up a 90s to 2min hill, or 800m, rest for 2mins then another 800m, ensuring the last 400 is flat out.

If you have a race, then we can guage it from that data.

OK...fresh and niggle free it is.

Will give myself a break tomorrow and see how I'm feeling Saturday.

Cheers

LC, Thanks for the HR data.

Here are my zone reccomendations:

65-70%  Very easy   127-137
70-75%  Easy           137-147
75-80%  Steady        147-157
80-85%  Moderate    157-166
85-90%  Tempo        166-176
90-95%  Interval       176-186
 
As you suspected though, you have been spending too much time in the higher zones, and this has left quite a bit of the toothpaste in the tube.
 
In your first 6 weeks phase, I would do all your runs in zones 1 and 2.
Weeks 6-12 should then involve some (1 or 2 max) zone 3 runs.
I would fully expect that given enough time in the first 2 zones, over the first 6 weeks, your pace should improve by at least 1m/mile in these zones.
 

Great Brian.

Thank you very much for this

LC, And to add:

At the end of 6 weeks i would expect you to be doing something like this:
 
Mon    45mins zone1
Tues   70mins zone2
Wed   60mins zone1
Thurs  45mins zone2
Fri       70mins zone1
Sat      rest
Sun     90mins zone1
 
Build it gradually though.
This may seem a big step up, but if you stick to the zones, you should easily be able to cope.
 
As you build up the runs, ensure you stay flexible (yoga/pilates are good), and do plenty of stretching. 

Rodders, Some good numbers there, a solid start. Once you startt to hit 70mins on most of your (easy) runs, big adaptations take place, and the improvement comes.

My 1st week back running after the marathon amounted to 3-5-7-8-8-rest-8, so happy with that. 

Hello all,

Just spent a while reading all of this. Interesting stuff and something I think I'm going to try for the rest of th year. 

As a little background - I had an excellent early part of the year. Just breaking 59 mins for 10 miles, 35'48 for 10k and 2'49 at VLM. All pretty big PBs. However, since then I've been gradually on the decline (possilbe lack of recovery, too much 'fast' running etc).

In March I ran 379 miles at 7'29 per mile avg, avg HR 137bpm.
In October I purposely reduced mileage quite a lot cos I thought my problem was overtraining/overreaching. So I did 169 miles (my lowest this year) - 8'22 per mile avg, avg HR 136bpm.

So my gradual decline has seen me lose about 60 secs/mile for the same HR from where I was in March.

I've dabbled with Hadd over the past 2 weeks but haven't done everything at the right pace. I've often ran with friends/done Club Runs and the HR has been far too high etc, so I need far more discipline and patience and to fly solo for a while I think.

Running 50 mpw is pretty straight forward for me at present, and running 7 days a week is fine. I've not done a max HR test, but the max I've had while racing this year has been 178bpm, so I've just knocked 15bpm off all the stats Hadd quotes for Joe (and assume it'll be about 180bpm). Avg HR for London was 157bpm, so it's about right I think. I'm therefore working on 130bpm as my slow pace, and 145bpm as my sub-LT. It's quite hilly here so keeping at 130bpm has seen a few 10'00+ min/miles - I've found this really tough, but the plan is to just use the Garmin purely as a HRM and stopwatch and just run for time and HR as per Brian's advice.

Not sure if I have any questions on this as such - but my LT level seems to have dropped quite significantly, so I'm hoping this approach will help.

Not done the 2400m test yet, but might have a dabble this week if I can. Will give me a baseline if nothing else.

Interested to see if anyone has any views/advice anyway, cos I'm going through the mill a bit at the mo!

Cheers

Hi LS21, welcome to the fold. Glad you enjoyed Amsterdam, I was there last year, and really enjoyed it too. Knowing a little about you already (from the sub-3 thread), I think the decline is mainly down to you being totally knackered. I know you've done the 24 hour thing, and 2 marathons, and lots of races
recently, and maybe it's just time to take a rest.
Knowing that you (like me) will not want to just take a month off, the hadd stuff will hopefully be the next best thing, and act as "active recovery".
Maybe there is mental tiredness also, I do also think that there was an injury in there somewhere (gained in one of the 24 hour runs?).

Certainly from a mental point of view, the hadd stuff does have a rather refreshing effect.
If you just focus on time and HR, it automatically takes away the stress/pressure of pace and mileage.
We are both in the same recovery phase as far as the marathon is concerned, and so a similar approach would seem reasonable. My max is high 180s, and my runs since the marathon have been 123,122,129,131 and 125.
So If I were you I would go right back down to the 65-70% zone (115-125), lets call this zone 1.
Ok this is gonna be some serious wombling, but it might be beneficial for you to get right to the bottom
of the tube again, hopefully whilst refreshing the legs and the mind.

My initial plan for you would be something like this

Week1
mon 45mins z1
tue 50mins z1
wed 60mins z1
thur 45mins z1
fri 70mins z1
Sat rest
Sun 70mins z1

Week2
mon 50mins z1
tues 70mins z2
wed 60mins z1
thurs 70mins z1
fri 60mins z2
sat rest
sun 80mins z1

where z2 is 70-75% (125-134)

This takes you up to a full month after the marathon, and ready for some slightly less easy stuff.

Hi Brian,

Cheers for the repply - and yes nail on head there I think with the 'totally knackered' line! Think you're right re the mental tiredness too. I had a good London, trained hard for the 24 Hr thing (which went well) and then Amsterdam was one step (or several steps actually...) too far. So I ditched Amsterdam as a race, ran with a mate in 3'24 and had a great time. Oh and the injury was last year by the way - Aug-Dec time pretty much.

That plan looks pretty good yes. I've been bending BR's ear quite a bit re all this too! I'm finding the slow stuff really hard, but I need to be far more patient (not one of my virtues) - but I seriously need to do something dramatcially different, cos I'm shot to bits at the mo. I'm not even getting near to the tube to even try squeezing the toothpaste at the mo!

I've got one more stupid thing to do this Sat (National XC Relays) but it's only 5k. After that I'm thinking circa 12 weeks of Hadd-esque stuff and then a 12 week Mara-specific plan. I'm hoping that by 'committing' to this thread it'll make sure I DO only run in the zones prescribed, and not settle back into my 'normal' pace again. As I say, finding it hard but needs must I think.