Testing

Yesterday I had my Lactate Threshold tested again. For those who aren't wannabe sports medicine geeks, Lactate Threshold is the heartrate/effort level at which the level of lactate in your blood exceeds 4mmol. Basically, it's close to the max sustainable effort level that you can perform aerobically. For an olympic distance race, I race at or slightly over my LT. For longer distances, I'll make sure to stay below it ( or I might not finish the race! ).

I last had it tested in early February. Then, it was 160 bpm. I've had a solid 7 months of trainins since then. When measured yeterday it was 171 bpm. That's a pretty hefty increase. It's increased more than my coach thought it would. This is a good thing.

At the same pace in Feb, my HR is 16 beats lower. So that's improvement in both cardiovascular fitness and economy. All this running is paying off, apparently. Now, we'll see what I can do over this winter to build on that. LT will fall off a bit over winter as I shift to more base building workouts, but it should pick back up in the spring. And continued running should see economy improvments which means faster pace at all effort levels.