Vdot or HR which takes precedence?
I'm on wk2 of the OffSeason plan and did the Tuesday AM Bike and PM Run (not as a brick). The pace for the run was at my E pace...set it on the treadmill and went to town. My HR though was well above Z1. My instinct tells me to continue at the prescribed pace vs reacting to HR, but I wanted to doublecheck.
Cheers
0
Comments
Hi Craig,
VDOT pace takes priority. The EN program (and, by the way, Jack Daniels, who came up with VDOT and wrote Daniels Running Formula) prescribes running dosage by time-at-pace.
The philosophy (supported by physiology) is that speed comes from the muscles. Training stimulus is delivered via the prescribed time-at-pace to the muscles, which in turn respond during recovery by becoming stronger and faster - training response. Training load is also limited to prevent injury to the muscles.
That said, you should experience aerobic gains as you work your way through the outseason. HR is interesting for a few reasons. As the OS progresses, you should see your HR at a given intensity (time-at-pace) come down. If you don't see this aerobic improvement, then you may want to take a look at whether you're getting enough sleep, enough recovery time, etc.,.
Short answer, though, is time-at-pace, where pace is determined by your 5k test.
When starting with EN a few years ago I used both HR and pace.
I have not used a HR monitor for 2 years now!! I am strictly a power and pace person now and have been fine.
All of my races are done without a heart rate monitor also and can't say truly why I would need to include it.
Just my two cents. Therefore with me pace always trumps HR BUT knowing your body will pay off even bigger - meaning I know during a 5K if I start to dry heave that my HR is usually around 180.