RUN analysis and STAIRS running – Ultra training EP6
Episode 6 of my 10 weeks ultra training.
In this episode i went for a new run analysis and i did a new workout which involved running up and down stairs.
If you followed my marathon training series, you know that i did a run analysis back in December.
Well i wanted to repeat the test to see what the difference in my overal condition was.
I also decided to do the test at another training center to see if the way of testing is the same or not.
There are indeed differences possible in the way that they test.
My first test contained blocks of 7 minutes after which the speed was increased with 1,5Km/h.
The lactate test and BORG scale of intensity was the same, just before the end of each block.
This test was a block of 5 minutes and i could choose if i wanted to increase the speed with 1Km/h or 1,5Km/h.
I have chosen to increase also with 1,5Km/h for this test.
I’ve been told that there are also people that perform tests with blocks of 8 minutes.
A key point for everyone is, that you can discuss this if you go for such a test. There are different possibilities to do this kind of test!
At my first test they mentioned that i was holding back too much during my trainings.
Back then i thought that my zone 2 went until 142 bpm.
According to my test it went up to 152.
I modified my training to these new calculations, so the expectation was also that my speed would increase.
And it did increase, but there are also differences in my heart rate zones in comparison with now.
Hereby an overview of my results back in December 2022:
Zone 1: below 137
Zone 2: 137 – 152
Zone 3: 152 – 165
Zone 4: 165 – 175
Zone 5: 175 – 183
Zone 6: higher than 183
Fat burning zone: 137 – 165
Speed between 8Km/h and 12,1Km/h
Carbohydrates zone: 165 – 178
Speed between 12,2Km/h and 14,5Km/h
Max zone: 175 – 192
Speed higher than 14,5Km/h
The new results from April 2023 show a little difference in bpm and speed:
Zone 1: below 133
Zone 2: 134 – 145
Zone 3: 146 – 159
Zone 4: 160 – 167
Zone 5: 168 – 173
Zone 6: higher than 173
Fat burning zone: 133 – 159
Speed between 8Km/h and 12,9Km/h
Carbohydrates zone: 160 – 171
Speed between 13Km/h and 14,4Km/h
Max zone: 172 – 190
Speed higher than 14,5Km/h
One key point that remains more or less the same is the maximum speed.
This means with all the training from the last months i didn’t increase my maximum speed, but i did fine tune my engine to run faster in my lower zones.
I did got the recommendation during my last test that if i would like to further improve, i will need to train on increasing that maximum speed.
For example by doing more VO2MAX workouts and pushing that heart rate above 180…
My condition in the lower heart rate zones is already optimised and reaching the limits of what i can perform with my current max heart rate.
There are still a lot of improvements possible!
For the moment my focus will not be on further increasing my maximum speed, but to maintain my condition as much as possible until after my ultra training.
I will write a more detailed blog about this very soon with more information about both tests!
There will also be a new and important training block coming later this year, stay tuned!
My workout session consisted of running up and down stairs.
There were 27 steps in today and each repetition was 300 meters (not stairs, give me a sec to explain…).
I started running up 27 steps and then did a small 300 meters circle to return back down at the stairs.
I repeated this 10 times.
Per repetition it took me about 1min30s – 1min35s to complete (around 17 minutes for the complete 10 repetitions).
Then i did the same route but the other way around.
This caused me to run a bit more uphill to get back to the stairs and go down again.
Obviously i’ve taken a bit more time per repetition to complete this. it was around 2 minutes per repetition.
I also did at least 10 repetitions in this way (could have been 11 since i lost count at a certain point, whoops…).
One thing that i noticed is that my legs wanted to run faster the more repetitions i was doing.
So it felt great doing this exercise!
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