For most runners, especially, those just starting out, figuring out how "hard" or how "fast" or how "long" a run should be can be really confusing. How will I know that I will get faster or stronger running this way? I will try to sort out this confusion for you.
A basic tenant of physical fitness is that muscles actually grow and get stronger while resting. While this seems counterintutituve, it is a scientific fact. Think about the fact that children grow while they are sleeping. So, running as fast as you can day after day will not result in a runer getting faster or stronger, it will lead to injury. So, what to do?
Bill Bowerman may have been the first track coach to write down this fact, but it has been around for years. After an intensive workout, the runner should recover. For some people, one recovery day between intensive workouts is enough, for others, more recovery days are necessary. I will get to what to do on recovery days, but first, let's get to what it means for a workout to be intensive.
There are a number of ways to determine the intensity of a run. The first and most obvious one is, was the run painful? Feeling very sore afterwards? That is one way of telling that a workout was intensive, but that doesn't provide much feedback on how that particular workout will help you improve or to show what kind of shape you are in. Which leads us to the next step, measuring intensity.
Method 1. If you have run a route more than once, you've established a personal record for that route, you have a base time for comparison. Dividing that time by your "base personal record" will result in a ratio indicating the intensity of the run. For example, a a 7 mile run in 53 minutes is your PR. The current run is 56 minutes. Dividing 53 by 56 results in a ratio of .94 which would be a pretty intensive workout. A ratio of .60 would be an easy workout and so on.
Method 2. Measuring intensity by this method is based on a comparison of a per mile pace for the workout versus the race pace. Thus, if your workout resulted in a average per mile pace of 8:30 per mile and your goal race pace is 7:30, then clearly the intensity was not very high base on the pure numbers. My problem with this method of measurement is that it does not take into account the actual course. Running a 8:30 on a hilly course could actually be an extremely intense workout.
Method 3. This is a method of measurement commonly referred to in books and magazine articles. It is called "training zones." Meaning zone 1 is easy, zone 5 is maxium intensity. The measurement of the zones can be based on self perceived exertion or by the use of a heart monitor. This is a more complicated method because none of the measurements will mean anything to the runner unless they have first determined their lactate threshold and maximum heart rate. That subject will be dealt with later. In my opinion, for most runners, method 1 is the simpliestway of figuring out how hard a workout has been.
There is so much more to this subject. I will be happy to answer any questions the readers have.
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