I have talked many times about the importance of controlling effort, during workouts that are scheduled to be easy.  The best way to do that is to listen to your body.  Over time, you learn to understand how different efforts feel, and you can control your effort by this feel.

If you struggle with this however, a good alternative is to use a heart rate monitor and use heart rate, to control how hard you work.  Most tracking software packages will allow you set up your heart rate zones.  The key to getting accurate zones however, is figuring out what your lactate threshold heart rate is.

For running, one way to determine your lactate threshold heart rate, is to do a thirty minute run test.  Essentially you run as fast as you can for thirty minutes.  It’s best to try and keep an even pace; many people start out too hard and then slow down.  Ten minutes into the test, hit the lap button on your watch, so that you can calculate your average heart rate for the final twenty minutes.  This heart rate will be a good approximation of your lactate threshold heart rate.

For my zones, I use the calculation method created by Joe Friel.  He uses a total of seven zones, and has different calculators for running and cycling.  Once you have your zones set up accurately,  you can use them to guide your training.  Today I had a zone 2 run and zone 2 running for me, should be between 134 and 144 bpm.  The average heart rate on my run today was actually 132 bpm … a little low. 

My effort felt like a zone 2 effort, so maybe it’s time for me to do another lactate threshold test; I haven’t done one since last year. A new test will make sure my zones are still correct…