Setting Your Pace Scientifically
Training with a heart monitor can help most runners get back into shape after a layoff caused by a major injury or illness. The monitor takes away the guesswork as to what your training pace should be.
One of the more common errors that runners make when getting back into shape is being impatient. They want to pick up where they left off, forgetting that they have been out of shape for months, if not years. Let me give you an illustration. Take a runner with PRs of 3:30 in the marathon and 43:00 in the 10K. Normally her 60-70 percent effort (this is the recommended pace for your easy days and long runs) would be about a 9-minute pace. But after a six-month layoff, a 60-70 percent effort for her is more likely to be about a 10-minute pace until she has spent a few months getting back into condition. If she tries to resume training at a 9-minute pace, she will probably be running at 80 percent effort and unable to keep up the pace very long. If she does not slow down, she will tire and become discouraged, perhaps even injure herself.
Here's a heart monitor has helped one runner in his early 50s to position himself to qualify for Boston. Ten to fifteen years ago, he was quite a good runner. For a number of reasons he stopped training seriously and had to settle for very slow times on the few occasions that he raced. He made several ill-fated attempts to get serious about his running. For example, he would go out and try to run a few miles at an 8-minute pace. He thought he should be able to run at this pace because it was slower than his 7:30 training pace from the mid-1980s. Given his current level of fitness, however, an 8-minute pace was too hard for him. He often had to stop in the middle of a run and begin walking. Then he would give up, thinking he was a victim of age. Two or three months later he would try again with the same result.
When he signed up with my coaching program, I put him on a heart monitor and insisted that he forget about trying to run at any particular pace. I also told him that he would probably start out averaging a 9:30 pace when he did his easy days at 60-70 percent effort. At first he was not sure he could run that slow, but he tried faithfully and managed to keep his easy days at 60- 70 percent. Two noteworthy things happened: he was able to complete all of his runs without being wiped out, and he was rested enough to run the two hard workouts a week that I sched- uled for him. Because he was able to complete the hard workouts (at 75 percent effort or greater), he got into better shape. Consequently, over the past five months his training pace on easy days has dropped nearly a minute per mile without a change in effort. His mileage has increased from 15 to 40 miles per week. The 3:35 he needs to qualify for Boston no longer seems like a pipe dream.
Coach West is a licensed coach, affiliated with MCRRC, and available to coach motivated adult runners. A portion of his coaching fees for MCRRC members is returned to MCRRC. For further information about personal coaching opportunities, contact Coach West at kirtwest@comcast.net.
