- Whew.
Morning, Trainiacs.
That was a 88 minute run going a little bit
over 17 kilometers
cruise-y kind of long run.
One thing that I'm getting reminded about a lot
as new athletes who don't have a history
in swimming, biking, or running,
have a really tough time with
is running at a low heart rate
and that's the key to triathlon.
It's not about how fast you can go at the top.
It's about how fast you can go while keeping
your heart rate really low
and everyone when they get into triathlon
struggles with that key thing.
So what we're gonna go through
is a simple three step process
to instantly bring that heart rate down
so that you can run faster
with it feeling easier,
avoid injury,
and enjoy this a lot more.
(upbeat music)
- Whoo.
Traniacs,
we are back in the pain cave shootin' videos.
It's nice to have the studio back.
All right.
So as athletes start joining teamtrainiac.com
or as you just start listening to me talk
about zone two training low heart rate run training,
a lot of you might be starting it
and going,
"Holy smokes!
"I cannot bring my heart rate down."
That's very normal.
The combined force of us pounding on the ground
with our body weight results in load
of about seven to nine times our body weight.
This is an enormous load on our body structure
to end up keeping it upright when we're running.
So just naturally our heart rate shoots through the roof
a lot more than when we're in the pool
or when we're on the bike,
but it is critical to do this running.
So how do you actually end up doing it?
Well, I'm gonna give you three steps
to figuring out how
to gradually bring your heart rate down here.
First, why is it so important?
It's critical to make ourselves faster
if that's what you wanna do
or just get through your race with more
of an enjoyment by having a faster bottom map.
It is not done by increasing your top end of speed
it's by taking that floor of what a comfortable, easy
pace is and bringing that up.
Why is that?
A few reasons.
Number one, our top end just isn't sustainable.
Our top end is our top end because it's how fast
we can go for a short period of time.
We can't do it much more than a few minutes and yes
while top end really fast hit workouts
do end up helping our overall endurance,
it's not where we're racing.
We don't race at that fast speed
and we have to train like we race.
We race even if it's a sprint distance race
if you like check a Garmin watch
or any sort of fitness tracking watch
that after a run it says what the load is
on your aerobic system, your low end,
versus your anerobic system, your top end,
it's usually at least 96 percent aerobic.
Not anerobic. Not our top end.
So even our fast runs are using
that low end zone one two systems.
We have to train that
and then finally,
triathlon is not about who goes the fastest.
It's not a 100 meter dash.
It is about who slows down the least
and the way that you do that is by getting
your slow pace fast enough
so that you can do it in a race
and just chug-a-chug out throughout the 5k, the 10k,
the 21.1k, the 42.2k,
without slowing down.
But you're still going fast enough
that you're passing lots of people
and that is how you're successful in triathlon.
So let's get into these three steps
of how to start from wherever you are
even if you have no history
of triathlon, swim, bike, or run training at all,
to being able to run comfortably
in whatever distance triathlon you want.
Step one
is to figure out what your heart rate's ceiling is.
Personally, I like the Maffetone Method
of heart rate ceiling creation
and you can get that by going to
triathlontaren.com/hrtraining.
And what you do is you put in your age
and then you answer some yes or no questions
and this starts creating your custom top end of zone two,
but that's not enough.
While it is somewhat accurate at figuring
out your top end of zone two,
which is your roughly aerobic threshold,
they're not exactly right.
There was once a time
that I had my heart rate ceiling calculated
with the Maffetone method
at around 142 beats per minute.
I went into the lab
and it was actually calculated
at 137 beats per minute.
The consequence of this could actually be very huge.
What if I had run at 139 beats per minute?
You might have said,
"Well, Taren that's just two beats per minute.
Not a big deal,"
but those two beats a minute
of just dipping over the aerobic threshold
is very very taxing on the body.
So it leads to over training and that's
So take that calculation from triathlontaren.com/hrtraining
and then err on the side of caution.
Run most of your runs well away from
that heart rate ceiling.
We're talking five to 10 beats per minute.
And you might be saying,
"Well, you know,
am I gonna get anything faster?"
Yes!
Running frequently gets you faster
and still being in that aerobic zone even though
it's maybe zone 1
maybe a ways away from the top of your zone two.
You're frequently hitting that aerobic fitness
and it's still going to have the effect
of building your endurance and building your fitness,
whereas if you were even just two beats over
that aerobic threshold because you decided
to ride the lightning a little bit.
Well, you are going to lead to over training.
So you've got your heart rate ceiling.
What do you do next?
Step two is to run a lot.
Now back before 2018,
I was only running twice a week.
I had some internal issues
that were making running really uncomfortable for me
during the run and for a couple of days after.
So I ran the minimum amount which was
about two runs per week.
And this got me through some races
and I did some okay runs because I knew
which those two runs were supposed to be.
But it wasn't really enough to make a huge difference
in my run performance.
The reason for that is that not all running
is created equal.
In 2019, I went into a lab and I did some
run testing and I found out
from my coach, Dr. Dan Plews,
that my efficiency was so bad
that at a five minute per kilometer pace,
which is fairly pedestrian it's not too hard,
I was working as hard as Dan Plews,
pro athlete one of the greatest triathletes of all time
probably like top 30-ish.
His comparable pace was faster
than a three minute kilometer.
He was going like all out
so I was burning through a ton of energy.
Now some run coaches might lead you to believe
that just with changing your form and altering
this or that you're going to become a more efficient runner,
but what is actually shown to be the case is
that you will develop your best, most efficient stride
just by running frequently.
And that even means if you're running four
or five times a week and only one of those runs
are long and the rest are 10 to 20 minutes
that running frequency is going to allow your body
to figure out how to run more efficiently.
So what's gonna happen is you are going to be able
to use less energy to run which is naturally going
to bring your heart rate down
because you're not working so hard.
But that's only if you're really really focused
on improving your run.
If you're just looking to finish two runs a week
and the right two runs a week
probably enough.
So let's say you know what heart rate to run at.
You've decided how much you're going to run.
Well, how do you actually start bringing
your heart rate down?
That's step three
and that's where the art of understanding
how to essentially not lose your mind with
this low heart rate training comes in.
And there are some tricks that I recommend
that allow you to run more easily,
more frequently,
without just slowing down to a shuffle
and feeling like you're not doing anything.
For starters on your low heart rate runs,
your heart rate ceiling is your heart rate ceiling.
You are going to run under that no matter what it takes.
This means if you're running into the wind,
if you're running up hill,
if you're running in heat,
if you're running on a treadmill
where there isn't a lot of air circulation,
if you're running after travel,
if you're running a little bit sick,
if you're running a little bit tired,
if you're running a little bit fatigued
because training is at a high level
your heart rate ceiling is your heart rate ceiling.
So you're gonna have to sometimes run slow,
but here's how you can make that less monotonous.
First, you can run early in the morning when it's cold.
Being cool will bring your heart rate down
allowing you to run a little bit easier.
Number two, you can go on hills
or hikes where going slow is fun.
If you're on a trail,
if you're on a hill,
and you end up walking but your heart rate
is still nice and high right around where you want to be.
That's okay.
That's good training.
That's time on your feet.
That is zone two training time
your body doesn't know pace.
Your body know the physiology of how hard
we're working by our heart rate.
So I find trails and hikes immensely fun
and you don't have to worry about,
"Oh, well,
I'm only walking down the sidewalk."
No, you're walking on hills and trails
or you're shuffling on hills and trails.
Still plenty of fun and a great workout.
In addition to that,
you have the added benefit of it being essentially
a strength focused workout.
Strength training for running.
Next, a trick that I like to use
that I actually used in 2019 Challenge Roth
is when my heart rate started creeping up,
I started to get control of my breathing.
And one thing that I did was deep
(inhaling and exhaling heavily)
and controlled belly breaths.
Breathing up here
(panting)
short and shallow
shoots your heart rate up.
But having a deep
(inhaling and exhaling heavily)
controlled belly breath can bring your heart rate
down by in my experience as much as 10 beats per minute.
So having control of that controlled deep belly breath
can bring your heart rate down allowing you to still run.
Next, run at your personal smoothest cadence.
There's a lot of talk of your cadence being high
like 180, 185,
your steps per minute being pushed right up there
and that's gonna be your way to being most efficient.
In my opinion,
once you get over 165 steps per minute you're okay.
If you want to improve your cadence do
that in the speed workouts,
do that in the workouts where you have no problem
having a higher heart rate
because it's more of a speed focused workout
work on that fast turn over
and that will help your normal everyday cadence
of the low heart rate just gradually come up on its own.
Next, you can run more frequently
but shorter to avoid cardiac drift.
Your heart rate in the course of a run
will gradually increase over the course
of 60 to 90 minutes even at the same pace.
So by the end of a 60 to 90 minute run,
your heart rate will be quite high making
it very difficult to keep your heart rate low.
So like I said,
instead you can run frequently throughout the week
for shorter bursts so that your heart rate
only has a smaller amount to climb.
Double bonus.
Next, if you are doing one of those long endurance days
where you have no choice but to let cardiac drift happen
because you're doing a long run
and you have to be on your feet for a long period of time
you can make those endurance runs a progression run.
Where you gradually increase your speed
so that at the end of the run it's almost like a tempo pace.
So this is a long tempo run and by that time
your cardiac drift does matter because you're running long.
Be careful with this because that's all part
of a proper triathlon training program.
Finally, be patient.
I talked about this one day on my Instagram channel
and I said wait three to six months for this to happen.
And I had some comments from people saying,
"Three months?
"Are you kidding me?
"I can't wait that long."
Look, if three months is not a quick enough time
for you to see progress,
you're in the wrong sport.
People end up swimming for years to maybe get
a second faster in a time trial.
Bike strength.
You talk about old men bike strength out there
in hills and the wind.
That's because those old men have ridden for decades.
Running is the same.
Expect it to take a long time.
Anything that is done really fast
and showing you very quick improvement in triathlon
is likely setting you up for illness, injury, over training.
It's not sustainable
and it is not the way to train
in such a way that you're risking your livelihood,
your health,
for a quick fix.
Quick fixes don't exist.
Like I said,
the start of how you figure this out
is by figuring out your heart rate
and you can get that done at triathlontaren.com/hrtraining
and in that I talk about how to balance
your long runs versus your hard runs.
How, spoiler alert,
you actually shouldn't really use heart rate
for the high intensity stuff and why that is.
And that's all free you just
go to triathlontaren.com/hrtraining,
you put in your e-mail address,
you get it for free.
And if you are a new triathlete
and you aren't yet subscribed
and you need help getting to your race,
figuring out how to create a triathlon training plan,
we create videos here weekly.
Hit the subscribe button below.
Later, Trainiacs.