Ever since I met Ravi back in the Spring, he’s been trying to get Lisa and I to pay more attention to our heart rate, zones, intervals, blah blah blah… Until now, all this has just gone in one ear and out the other. It’s hard to understand it all when I don’t care that much. However, since I’ve set my goal to qualify for Boston in 4 years, I figure I am going to need all the help I can get to run faster.

Based on researching online, I understand that it’s important to follow the 80/20 rule where you run 80% of your mileage at easy pace (zone 1-2) and 20% at moderate/hard pace (zone 3-5). Very interesting concept but turns out it’s easier said than done because most people are usually running in the moderate zone.

In order to determine the zones, Ravi told me I had to do a test to find out my lactate threshold heart rate (LTHR). The LTHR test is 30 minutes of running at your max effort. The average heart rate from the last 20 minutes is your LTHR. Ravi was kind enough to pace me and gave me lots of encouragement along the way. It was hard. After 10 minutes, I wanted to quit. After 20 minutes, I wanted to throw up. I started breathing so hard that I was making a really ugly heaving sound. I didn’t know if I was going to make it through but somehow I did. Thank goodness my watch tracked properly. Could you imagine if I had a Garmin fail?

So I found out my LTHR is 174bpm and max HR is 180bpm. That’s supposed to translate into different heart rate zones. Awesome. Mission accomplished.

The thing that I was most impressed with was the pace that I was able to sustain. For 30 minutes, I ran at an average 4:47/km which is much faster than anything I’ve done before. This means my 5k time would be less than 23 minutes! I’ve improved over 10 minutes in my 5k time since July 2017. Wow!!! Can you believe that??? I can’t believe it!

I still don’t really know what to do with the LTHR and the HR zones but I’m so glad that I found out I can run at a 4:47 pace for 30 minutes. Thanks Ravi! 😉