It's started out pretty tough to try to keep my heart rate under 145. I had just finished training for my half-marathon and it was a little bit of a challenge to switch from a couple of days of speed work each week to slow and easy runs all the time. It was also a challenge to run at the pace required to keep my heart rate below 145. When I started running using this method, my pace was around 12-13 minute miles and I had to take several walking breaks to keep my heart rate down.
I thought about throwing in the towel after the first week and just going back to running by feel (like I did this past summer). But I really wanted to give this method a shot, so I stuck with it. After two weeks or so, I had finally made the mental switch from a race schedule to a maintenance schedule. I relaxed and started to really enjoy running at the slower, more comfortable pace. Running slower frees my mind to think about other things other than getting through my run - noticing the beauty around me, planning out my goals for the week, or even solving problems that have come up during work.
Running slower has certainly worked for me mentally, but it's hard to tell whether or not it's actually working physically. I like to minimize the variables when I'm conducting tests and I feel like there have been many changing variables over the past several weeks: different temperatures, different running routes (hilly vs. flat), different altitudes (I spent a week in AZ), and even different running surfaces (pavement vs. snow filled streets). Due to these different variables, I've had to vary my speed a lot to keep my heart rate in check, so I'm not really seeing a progressive decrease in my overall run times.
On the other hand, despite the differing variables I did improve slightly from test one to test two. It could just be a fluke since the tests were fairly close together and I'm not really sure I improved that much in just a few weeks. So I guess only time will tell as to whether or not this method is working for me. I'm still going to stick out this training plan for the remaining 8 weeks to see what happens. If I don't like the results, I'll just go back to what I was doing last summer (running according to how I feel vs. running under a certain heart rate).
For posterity, here are the results from my first two MAF tests. I conducted these tests by running a warm up mile @ my MAF heart rate - 20 (i.e. 125), running three miles @ MAF heart rate (145), and then running a cool-down mile @ MAF - 20 again.
| Test | Date | Mile 1 | Mile 2 | Mile 3 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 12/20/15 | 11:50 | 12:40 | 13:13 |
| 2 | 01/03/16 | 10:28 | 11:15 | 11:42 |
I tried to keep the variables for each test similar if not the same; I ran both tests indoors at the gym, wearing the same outfit, around the same time of day, and after similar sleep/eating patterns beforehand. I'll do the same for this week's upcoming test.
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