I had one of the best workouts of the year. I just nailed it, it was perfect. I always think about stuff and like to tinker around. Workout programming ! I absolutely believe and actually live and experience, that however a workout is programmed, it helps evidently with performance, but it also helps immensely with injury prevention and recovery. When I talk about performance, one thing about a workout is priming and preparing. I am a big believer in increasing performance. I don't really like standards and graduality, regularity.
It is somewhat applicable to road and trail running, but the boredom of it, especially when you run alone is very dulling. Like running 1:10 400s on the track. The first 2 is very hard, then you get to hold of it, you know you can do it and you just do it even it was hard.
When you train for trail running for instance doing 4 minute reps on an uphill and using heart rate as a guide, your perf on that uphill will be all over the place. For instance last time I used this example doing 10 x "till first turn" uphill. The range and the difficulty level was different for every single repeat, despite I used the same stick it to 145 bpm heart rate. Also intra workout nutrition changes everything. The first two was really mentally difficult. Then 4 and 5th too strangely were feeling like hah. In the 4th I had a 45g gel with some water and 10g of sugar in it. In the 7th I had a hard time of keeping up my heart rate and had it probably 2 to 3 beats lower than the other splits, but had my fastest split between the 10, despite that the overall trend is tending down due to heart rate drift. The last 2 were faster than the first two !
You know what I mean ? You must be observing yourself. You must be understanding of the human physiology in the moment. Can you push right now or wait a minute and push it then ?
So 3 days ago on Tuesday, I had a workout, that was uncontrolled. I did not have the heart rate monitor either. We ran up some very steep hills. 4 + 4 + 6 + 15 mintues or something like this. It was not runnable, the angles were all over from 20 to 30 with some steeper 40% grades time to time and evening out to like 3 to 5 m flattened out stretches in the zig zags. I think that my heart rate was a bit shot, due to Sunday long run and Monday rest, but I was in difficulty.
Then Wednesday morning I went up on a hill, 100% walking with poles, around 3.7km for 1000m of gain. Ran down on it with nice short steps.
Yesterday, the workout I am talking about, that was one of the best I had this year. It is a forestry road 100% uphill. Steep of 4 to 7% for the first half and 3 to 6% the second half. We ran 2 min, 4min, 6min, 8min and 10min on it.
I observed and controlled my heart rate. I was trying to keep it around 150 for the first, then around 155 for the middle three reps. I mean, these are not high heart rates. For a 45minute race on rolling hills, if the terrain is runnable, I can still hold 170 for average.
But I was huffing and puffing, sweating and it was very difficult. On the other hand, I said to myelf, look at the heart rate. It is doable. Very doable. I mean 6minutes uphill @ 155 beats, knowing that this might be my 2 to 4hours average heart rate in some races, was in any case doable. I also observed that the moment the angles were dropping, despite that the effort was still perceived high, I was dropping beats and recovering. That is a sign, that, you think you are pushing, but no, you are not pushing anymore. It feels the same exact hard, but it is not hard in reality anymore. Heart rate tells you a lot.
So the final rep, after all of this, I went out considerably faster than before and my goal was to hit 160 beats this time, the fastest possible. The thing is that I hit a speedwall and a lactic acid bathe after like 90sec. Then I simply observed myself, adjusted my position, no more hunching, shortened my steps, increased cadence and kept on strodding uphill. When arrived to the first corner, despite that my heart rate did not drop, acid cleared out @ 3min 50. This is when usual HR drops occured, so lowered my stance just a little and elongated my stride. I increased my HR by a couple of beats and kept it over 160. One more turn and the terrain got even flatter. I increased again my foot stride length, but lifted up my center of gravity, using more my ankles and calves, to make it look like running. I kept my heart rate to the very end over 160.
So because of this gradual elevation of heart rate. Because of the 10 minute walk at the beginning and the increasing jog to the start, but also the 10min long walk after the last rep and the 20min jog back home, my workout felt like really well absorbed.
It has been 2 months now, that I pay extremely close attention to my heart rate and body. My workouts are planned as and I have been doing the volume I need right now. The highest in two years. Guess what, I don't do postworkout protein and creatine anymore and have the best recovery. Totally contradictional. I come home, eat a banana and 3 strawberries, shower down, prepare the table with the family, eat my dinner, go to sleep. Next day I feel good, I am not tired, no muscle issues, no nothing. Despite that I chained together 3 days of quite hard running and also had one of the best workout experiences this year, no faitgue and zero soreness. It is simply because of individual workout structure. Not periodization, not meals and massage guns, just workout structure. Crazy isn't it?
You'll see till the end of the year, I will need less rest, less recovery, I can train more and I will be able to do more stuff, than before, while my race results will be also awesome.
HR, intensity control, biomechanics, feeling out the body !
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