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How Fast Should My Heart Rate Be During a Race?

Or put another way, how long is a piece of string?

I was chatting with one of our runners the other day, who was concerned that her average heart rate was too high during a recent race. I’m not qualified to answer such a question as it relates to a particular individual and their heart health, but my general feeling was that an average heart rate of 172 beats per minute over a 5km race was not too high. However, if you have any concerns regarding your health, particularly the health of your heart, you should consult someone who is qualified to assess you. And I am not.

So, that’s the disclaimers out of the way. Let me also say, that our training programs are based on pace and intensity level, rather than heart rate. There are too many variables when it comes to heart rate, so it is not the most relevant factor when it comes to determining how hard you can or should race and train. There are many things which can effect your heart rate from day to day, such as sleep and stress levels, just to name a couple.

To race fast, you need a high average heart rate during the race

A relatively high average heart rate during an exercise bout shows a greater capacity of your heart for work. A greater work capacity of your heart is one of the things which will make you able to run faster, and in a race, that’s the goal.

When you increase your speed (and therefore your intensity), your muscles need more oxygen. If your heart has become stronger through training, it will be able to beat faster to get more oxygen and nutrient containing blood to your working muscles. You can’t run faster without your heart rate increasing.

Low Average Heart Rates and Fitness levels

There seems to be a misconception that high heart rates are bad, and being able to maintain a lower heart rate during racing or training means you’re fitter. Through training, you improve your movement economy, your running efficiency. That means at any given pace, your average heart rate will decrease as you become fitter. In other words, as you become fitter and your running economy improves, you don’t have to put as much effort in to run the same pace. Conversely, at any given heart rate, you’ll be able to run faster.

But, more often than not, the goal of a race is to either run as fast as you are capable of, or to beat everyone else in the race-or beat your friends at least. Your goal is not to run with a low average heart rate. A higher average heart rate means your heart is fit enough to have the capacity to work harder, and therefore run faster.

Cardiac Output

Your exercise performance is regulated by your cardiac output. Cardiac output is the amount of blood the heart pumps through the circulatory system in one minute. At rest, your total blood volume (which is generally between 4 and 6 litres, depending largely on your size), is pumped through your heart once. During exercise, the amount of blood pumped by your heart can more than double in a reasonably fit person. In elite athletes, the heart can pump around 6 times as much blood through the circulatory system each minute.

Cardiac output is influenced by two things: stroke volume and heart rate.

Stroke volume is the amount of blood ejected by the heart in one pump, and heart rate is the number of the number of times the heart beats per minute. Increase either or both of these, and you increase cardiac output.

The more active your muscles are, the more oxygen they require. When you start exercising, your muscles signal your hear to pump faster which increases the blood flow. Your working muscles increase stroke volume by contracting and sending larger volumes of blood back towards the lungs where it can be oxygenated and pumped out by the heart again to deliver oxygen back to the working muscles.

Adaptations to Training

As you undertake a training program and get fitter, your cardiac output increases. Your heart, which after all is just another muscles, gets stronger and is able to pump faster, and to pump more blood due to its improved strength, and the improved ability of the working muscles to help deliver deoxygenated blood back to the lungs to be re-oxygenated.

Does your maximum heart rate increase as you get fitter?

Your potential maximum heart rate is probably not very trainable, but your ability to reach your maximum heart rate may be. The whole thing is very hard to measure. To exercise at your maximum heart rate is not a particularly comfortable experience. You basically need to push harder and harder until you’re a blithering mess and can’t tolerate any more. But what’s to say the put at which I might give up, the level of pain I can tolerate, or the level of motivation I have to keep going, is the same as the next persons, or will be the same for me on each occasion I were to undertake such a test?

It’s often reported that as people get fitter, their maximum heart rate decreases, rather than increases. This is most likely due to the improvements in stroke volume as they become fitter. The heart is able to pump more blood each beat, and therefore does not need to pump as fast to deliver blood to the working muscles. It may also have something to do with psychological factors involved in testing.

Maximum heart rate is not the determining factor when it comes to running faster

When it comes down to racing, it’s not the person with the highest maximum heart rate who’s going to run the fastest. It’s far more likely to be the person with the highest average heart rate, or close to it. The person who can maintain a high heart rate for the longest amount of time, will be the person who is able to deliver the most nutrients and oxygen to the working muscles, allowing the muscles to work harder, and allowing the runner to run faster.

average heart rate heart rate

5 Quick and Easy Barbecue Recipes

Tandoori Chicken

So quick and easy. You just need to plan far enough ahead to marinate the chicken for a couple of hours before cooking.

Grilled Oyster Shooters

Grilled Vegetables with Balsamic Vinegar

For a variation on this one, try chopping the vegetables into chunks and threading onto a skewer along with some halumi.

Strawberry Spinach Salad

I haven’t tried this one, but it looked so interesting I had to throw it in!

Refreshing Watermelon Salad, with Feta Cheese and Olives

This one has become a personal favourite of mine since discovering it a couple of years ago.

Easy Bar-B-Q Tandoori Chicken

Ingredients

Pataks Tandoori Paste ( this seems to work better than other brands)
Full Cream Plain Yoghurt
Chicken Thigh Fillets (using things will ensure a more succulent finished product)

Method

You can prepare the chicken in two ways. Either keep the thigh fillets whole, if you’re serving them as part of a sit down meal, otherwise you can cut into bit-size strips which go down very well as finger food.
Prepare the tandoori paste as directed on the jar.
Add the chicken. Marinating overnight gets best results, but a couple of hours will do it.
Heat the barbecue plate so it is really hot when you add the chicken to seal in the juices.
Put the chicken on the barbecue plate. Turn as needed. I like to cook so that parts of the chicken are just barely beginning to turn charred.

Serve with lemon wedges, and sprinkled with coriander.

B-B-Q recipes Easy Recipes Tandoori Chicken

Getting the Most out of Treadmill Workouts

Ask anyone who does a bit of running, and they’ll have an opinion on treadmill running. Many runners feel running on a treadmill is easier than running outside-if you can stand the boredom. And I have to say, I was firmly in that camp, until I started looking a bit more closely at the research.

Treadmill Running vs Running Outside: which is harder?

Intuitively, it would seem that running on a treadmill has to be easier than running outside. After all, running on a treadmill, the ground moves for you. In theory you could just jump up and down, and not propel yourself forward, and the treadmill speedo would show you running at whatever pace the belt is moving.

However, if you base your workouts on exertion level rather than speed, you can get just as good a workout on the treadmill. A treadmill workout at 7/10 on the Rating of Perceived Exertion is the same exertion level as running 7/10 on the road. You might run a bit faster on the treadmill at the same level of exertion, but you’re still going to get the same training benefit if you’re running at 7/10.

When you’re running outside, you have to work against wind resistance, and you’re also constantly working smaller stabiliser muscles. Unless you’re running on a track, the surface you’re running on won’t be completely flat and level, unlike on a treadmill. You do miss out on that subtle strengthening of the smaller stabiliser muscles running on a treadmill. When you’re running outside, you’re constantly challenging the neural pathways which help you to cope with the constant changes in terrain and surface level.

Set the Treadmill At a 1% Gradient

There is research that shows setting the treadmill at a 1% gradient will compensate for the lack of wind resistance, and the resulting smaller energy cost of running on a treadmill. And setting the treadmill on a steeper gradient is comparable to an outside hill of the same gradient, in terms of energy costs.

So, if you want to run on a treadmill at the same speed and the same level of exertion as an outside flat run, you just need to set the treadmill at a 1% gradient. You will, however, miss out on some of the more subtle effects of running on the less predictable outside surface.

Why run on a treadmill?

If you’re like most people, you find running on a treadmill dead boring. So why would you do it?

Keeping your training consistent

The main advantage of treadmill running is that it’s inside, away from poor weather conditions. If it’s too cold, too wet, too dark, or too hot and humid, treadmill running can keep you consistent. And when it comes to fitness, consistency is super important.

No matter what you’re training for, you’ll only get results if you’re consistent with your training, across time. For example, if you’re training for a marathon or half marathon, consistency with your training over a six month period is far more important than belting out one or two big workouts. In fact, unless you’ve been consistent with your training across time, you’re unlikely to be able to complete your longer training runs, without risking overload and injury.

Keeping your easy days easy

Treadmill running is great if you’re having trouble keeping your easy days easy. Depending what you’re training for, your easy runs might need to be 30-40% slower than your 3km pace, and some people find that pretty hard to do. If you’re doing a treadmill workout, you can set the treadmill to the appropriate pace and forget. You’re pace won’t get faster over time. The one disadvantage of this is that having a set pace to run at doesn’t take into account the way you’re feeling on that particular day. You might have had a harder than normal workout the day before and need to take it a bit easier than your planned pace, so you do still need to be in tune with how you feel, and be prepared to slow the treadmill down if you need to.

If you’re looking for a really easy day, but you still want to run at a good pace, you can set the treadmill to a negative incline. Not too much: -0.5%-1% is enough to make a real difference.

Mental Toughness

Treadmill workouts can toughen you up mentally. If you’re reasonably serious about your training, you’ll get to a point where it starts to hurt in some of your sessions. The temptation here is to slow down. If you’ve got your treadmill set to a particular pace, then you can’t slow down without falling off the back! All you need to do is resist the temptation to change the setting on the treadmill.

Having said that, the set and forget method of treadmill running might not be so great for harder efforts such as interval training, tempo or race pace runs. You’re relying on the treadmill to keep you honest, and it will. Doing these harder runs outside can definitely be a bit more mentally taxing.

With a treadmill keeping pace for you, you’re free to drift off and let your mind wander. Outside, there’s nothing to keep you running fast except your mental focus and strength. Your mind needs to be trained, just as your body does, so if you’re always running on a treadmill, you’re not likely to develop the mental strength needed to push hard in a race.

Train on a Simulated Race Course

You can use a treadmill to simulate the course of your goal race. You can get a topography map of your race by using sites such as maypmyrun. Map the course out on map my run, then print out the topography chart. If your treadmill has the facility, you can program the inclines and declines in before you start. Otherwise, you can keep the printout on the dashboard of the treadmill, and manually adjust your treadmill for hills.

You can even have water and gels or other nutrition handy, to simulate when you’ll be taking your nutrition on board. If you’re planning on carrying your nutrition with you on race day, carry it in the same way you’ll be carrying it in a race, in a pocket, on a belt or in a Camelbak.

How to Counteract the Boredom Factor!!

There’s no doubt that running on a treadmill can get monotonous and boring. Try these tips to help overcome the boredom factor:

Watch TV whilst you’re running
Alternatively, watch nothing. Get into a good rhythm and get into your head space. Take this opportunity to meditate
If you’re at a gym, change treadmills part way through your run to change your surroundings a bit.
Listen to podcasts
Make friends with the people next to you. You’ll probably find they’ll be perfectly happy to talk to you. If you’re the shy type, have a few standard opening lines in your back pocket. “Are you training for anything in particular?” or “A bit boring running on the treadmill, isn’t it?” are reasonable conversation starters. Or you could try “love your running shoes, where did you get them?” or possibly “do you come here often???”
Take a friend to the gym with you
Skype your mother

Starting and Finishing Intervals on a Treadmill

Do you jump on a treadmill which is already moving at the pace you want to run your effort at? Or do you take the more sensible approach and work your way up to the pace of your effort?

No prizes for guessing which option I prefer.

Jumping on a treadmill moving at a rapid pace can be pretty tricky. If you’re doing an interval training session on a treadmill, you’re better off dropping the pace down to a walking pace for your recovery (unless you specifically want a standing recovery). Spend the first 5-10 seconds of your effort working up to the pace you want to run at. Even if you’re running outside it’ll take you a few seconds to reach your effort pace, so you’re not going to lose too much time at target pace by taking the safe option!

Try This Treadmill Training Session

Warm up at an easy pace for 10 mins or so. Make sure it feels pretty easy. You should be able to hold a conversation with no problems at all.

Pick the pace up a bit for the next 5 mins or so, until you’re running at about 5/10 on the Rating of Perceived Exertion

Once you’ve established the 5/10 effort pace, maintain that pace for 1km.

Run your next kilometer at 10 seconds faster than the previous.

Run each kilometer 10 seconds faster than the last.

Cool down with 5-10 minutes at a slow pace.

You can do this for as long as you like, (generally up to about 10km is good). For the first time, aim for 4kms, not including your warm up and cool down. As you get fitter, you can gradually increase the distance of this workout.

The Verdict

Treadmill workouts can be a great way to keep your training consistent and help you to develop a good sense of pace as it relates to increases and decreases in effort. You can use treadmill workouts to vary up your training a bit, but for me, there’s nothing like running in the great outdoors.

Treadmill Running Treadmill Workouts

7 Food Labelling Tricks

Fat free and 100% natural: seven food labelling tricks exposed

Sandra Jones, University of Wollongong

If you’re confused by food labels, you’re not alone. But don’t hold your breath for an at-a-glance food labelling system that tells you how much salt, fat and sugar each product contains. Australia’s proposed “health star rating” labelling scheme was put on hold in February, following pressure from the food industry. And it’s unclear whether the scheme will go ahead.

Marketers use a variety of tricks to make foods seem healthier and more appealing than their competitors, particularly when it comes to products aimed at children. One of the most powerful advertising tools a food manufacturer has is the packaging, as it’s what we look at immediately before deciding which food to purchase.

Next time you’re shopping for food, look out for these seven common labelling tricks:

The colour of food packaging can influence our perceptions of how healthy a food is.

A recent study found consumers’ perceptions of two identical chocolate bars were influenced by the colour of the nutrition label; despite the identical calorie information, people perceived the one with the green label to be healthier.

Another tool of savvy food marketers is the use of “ticks” and “seals” that we subconsciously process as indicating that the product has met some form of certification criteria.

A recent study found that nutrition seals on unhealthy food products increased perceptions of healthiness among restrained eaters. And a study with parents of toddlers found 20% of parents identified the presence of a quality seal as one of the reasons for their purchase of toddler formula rather than cow’s milk.

Food packaging often contains words that imply the food contains certain ingredients, or has been prepared in a way, that makes it healthier (or at least better than similar foods).

But many of the words – such as “healthy” or “natural” – have no legal or formal meaning. While the Australian New Zealand Food Standards Code regulates the use of specific health and nutrient content claims, it doesn’t regulate or define these loose terms.

“Weasel claims” describe modifiers that negate the claims that follow them. This allows manufacturers to avoid allegations of breaching advertising or labelling regulations, while being such a commonly used word that it is overlooked by the consumer.

For example, Activia “can” help to reduce digestive discomfort – but did you read the fine print? It “can” help if you eat it twice a day and “… as part of a balanced diet and healthy lifestyle”.

Similarly, Berri Super Juice contains antioxidants which “help” fight free radicals (but so does whole fruit, which also contains more fibre).

Unfinished claims tell us the product is better than something – but not better than what. In food labelling, we really have to hunt for the “what”.

Fountain’s Smart Tomato Sauce still contains 114mg of salt per serving, while the brand’s regular tomato sauce contains 186mg (more than several other brands).

The Heart Foundation defines low-salt foods as those with less than 120mg per 100g; Fountain’s Smart tomato sauce has 410mg per 100ml. It does, however, have less sugar than many of its competitors.

So, if you are trying to reduce your sugar intake it may be a good choice, but if you are trying to reduce your sodium intake, look for one of the low-salt varieties and read the label very carefully (reduced is rarely synonymous with low).

Smiths’ Thinly Cut potato chips contain 75% less fat than “chips cooked in 100% Palmolein Oil”. But they don’t contain less fat than Original Thins, Kettle, or most other brands on the market.

It’s also worth taking a close look at the recommended serving size – in both cases the nutrition information is based on a 27g serving, but Smiths’ “single serve” pack is 45g (15.7g fat; one-fifth of an average adult’s recommended daily intake, or RDI).

A common strategy is to list a claim that is, in itself, completely true – but to list it in a way that suggests that this product is unique or unusual (when in reality it is no different to most foods in that category).

“All natural” and “no artificial colours and flavours” are appealing features for parents looking for snacks for their children. But most standard cheeses (including many packaged products such as cheese slices) also contain no artificial colours of flavours.

This is not to suggest that Bega Stringers are a bad product or that you shouldn’t buy them – just that you may want to think about the cost per serve compared to other cheeses that are equally healthy.

Like most lolly snakes, Starburst snakes are “99% fat free”. The old adage of “salt-sugar-fat” holds here; products that are low (or absent) in one are typically very high in another. In the case of lollies, it’s sugar.

As with the potato chips above, serving size is important. Those of us who can’t resist more than one snake might be surprised to realise that if we ate half the bag, we would have consumed two-thirds of our daily sugar intake (although we can’t blame the pack labelling for that!).

Sun-Rice Naturally Low GI White Rice illustrates this use of technically correct claims. Let’s start with “cholesterol free” – this is totally true, but all rice is cholesterol free.

The pack also states in very large, bright blue letters that it is “Low GI”. In much smaller letters that almost disappear against the colour of the package is the word “naturally”. This use of different colours to attract, or not attract, attention is a common marketing technique.

The product is indeed low GI, at 54 it is just below the cut-off of less than 55. But the “naturally” refers to the fact that what makes it low GI is the use of basmati rice rather than another variety, and other brands’ basmati rice would have a similar GI.

Berri Super Juice proudly, and truthfully, claims it “contains no added sugar”. You may conclude from this that the sugar content is low, but a closer look at the nutrition information label may surprise you – a 200ml serve of this super juice contains 25.8g of sugar (29% of your recommended daily allowance).

While contentious, some have even suggested that there is a link between fruit juice and both obesity and metabolic disease, particularly for children. A better (and cheaper) way of obtaining the fruit polyphenols is to eat fruit.

Healthy sounding words are not only used as “claims” but are often used as brand names. This first struck me when I was looking for a snack at my local gym and noticed the “Healthy Cookies” on display; they had more sugar, more fat and less fibre than all of the others on sale (Healthy Cookies was the brand name).

Brand names are often seen as a key descriptor of the nature of the product. Research has found that people rate food as healthy or unhealthy based on pre-existing perceptions of the healthiness of a product category or descriptor, particularly among those who are watching their diet, and may thus select the unhealthier option based on its name or product category.

If, for example, you’re watching your weight, you may be attracted to the Go Natural Gluten Free Fruit & Nut Delight bar, assuming that it will be a healthier choice than a candy bar. But you might be surprised to note that it contains 932 kJ (11.0% of your RDI) and a whopping 13.6g of fat (10% of your RDI).

A 53g Mars bar contains slightly more calories (1020kJ) but a lot less fat (9.1g), although the Go Natural bar could argue for “healthier” fat given the 40% nut content.

So, can we really distinguish between healthy and unhealthy foods by looking at the wrappers?

The healthiest wrappers are made by nature, from the simple ones that can be eaten after washing (like apples and carrots) to those that need some disposal (like a banana or a fresh corn cob).

If you are buying your food wrapped in plastic or paper, it’s a little more complex. We need to see past the colours, pictures and cleverly-crafted claims and take a careful look at the ingredients and nutrition panel.

Sandra Jones, Professor and Director of the Centre for Health Initiatives , University of Wollongong

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

food marketing

Free Yourself From Your Running Watch

Back in the day, it used to be if you wanted to know how far you ran, or if you were planning to run a certain distance, you’d jump in your car, and measure the planned route.

When I say, “back in the day”, it wasn’t that far back. I remember taking the opportunity to measure my running routes whilst my kids were asleep in the back of the car. Killing two birds with the one stone – measuring my running distances, and getting a few more precious minutes of down time! My youngest is only nine, so we’re not talking more than nine years ago here!

If you were really advanced, you’d use mapmyrun and geodistance to map your route out before your ran.

And then came GPS watches!

GPS Devices Have Changed the Way We Train

In some respects, GPS devices, running watches in particular, have made coaching runners a lot easier, particularly if you’re wanting your runner to do tempo runs, cutbacks, or long intervals where pace is important.

On the down side is the fact that runners can become completely dependent on their watches, which can sometimes hinder their ability to “feel” the pace, and really know what their own body is capable of.

As a coach, it’s important to be mindful that setting specific paces for runners to train at will not take into account how they are feeling on the day. I always try to prescribe pace as a range, and also give a rating of perceived exertion (RPE) I want the runner to be training at. Using the two will usually give a better outcome than just training pace alone.

Sometimes, I map whole training plans using only RPE. It can take the pressure off, and allow the athlete to enjoy their running more. Most of us start off running because we think we might enjoy it, not because we think we’ve got a chance of beating our friends on Strava, so I see keeping the enjoyment in running as a super important part of coaching. Of course, beating your friends can add a whole new level of enjoyment.

Drawbacks of Becoming Too Reliant on Your GPS Watch

1. Getting too hung up on your current pace

Readouts for your current pace on your device are rarely your actual current pace. Garmins and similar devices receive signals via satellite every 1-2 seconds (that’s when conditions and signal strength are good). The device is constantly making calculations about your speed.

If you lose your satellite connection (and it might only be for a second or two at a time), the GPS measures the distance you ran in that downtime, and calculates the time it took you to get where you are now, which gives you a pace.

During this time where the signal is lost however, the current running pace will slow quite a lot. The device thinks you’ve stopped running. Over one kilometer, the device will measure pace and distance fairly precisely, but if you look at your current pace at around about the time you may have momentarily lost the GPS signal, you’ll think you’re travelling much more slowly than you actually are.

Constantly looking at your current pace may cause you to adjust your pace frequently. You won’t be developing a steady rhythmical feel for your running.

2. Not developing a good sense of pace and rhythm

If you’re training to race (and not all of you will be), you need to learn how to pace yourself. You need to learn what you are capable of at any given time. You might wake up on race day and feel fantastic. It might be your day. And if you’re planning on running the race based on some preconceived idea of pace, with no thought to what sort of effort level that might entail, you could be robbing yourself of an opportunity of a PB.

Conversely, you could wake up feeling like you shouldn’t get out of bed, or it might be 10 degrees hotter than expected. In those cases, you’re going to need to listen to your body, and slow down a bit, not stick to your planned race pace.

And if you never practice running on feel in training, you’re not going to be able to do it in a race.

Simply saying you’re going to run 10 seconds slower per km than planned, or 5 seconds faster, isn’t really going to cut it. Unless you know what 10 seconds slower per km feels like, or 5 seconds per km faster, these figures are just random numbers plucked out of the air, and may not be do-able.

At some point in your training, you need to put away the GPS and really take notice of how you’re feeling. Know what it feels like to be running easy, know what it feels like to be pushing hard, and know what it feels like to be somewhere in between.

Your GPS is not going to tell you if you have it in you to surge up the next hill and overtake your arch rival, or if you have it in you to push for the last 2kms of a half mararthon. Only being in tune with your body and how you’re feeling, and knowing your capabilities and limitaions, can do that for you.

3. Being a slave to your running watch might cause you to over-train

If you’re hell bent on running at a certain pace ALL of the time, you’re not likely to listen to your body and slow down when you need to. If you’re recording your data daily, it’s easy to get caught up with comparisons between your current run and previous runs. Back before I knew better (even before the days I was driving my kids round and round the neighbourhood putting them to sleep), every time I went out for a run, I was trying to beat some kind of previous best. And I wasn’t even training as a runner-running was just a bit of cross training at the time!

If you’re running hard speed workouts, and/or running lots of mileage, you need to do some running at an easy pace, to let your body recover. If you’re always looking at your GPS to make sure you’re running at the “right” pace on these easier runs, you’re not listening to your body. And if you’re not listening to your body, then you’re far more likely to be heading for an injury. (Back before I admitted this to myself, I ended up with two bulging intervertebral discs).

There’ll be days when your body just won’t feel energetic and “with it”. On these days, you need to give yourself permission to take it easy, and that’s much harder to do if you’re data obsessed.

How to Use Your GPS Device to Your Advantage

During a long run, check your pace after the first few minutes, then every 20 minutes or so after that, if at all. Be aware of how you feel. Get a sense of what a particular pace feels like. Learn from each training sessions by being aware of how you feel, rather than knowing what your watch tells you. You can download our eBooklet on pacing for your long run, if you want to get a sense of just how easy your long run should be.
Include workouts which have you changing paces frequently, such as tempo runs, cut backs and fartlek. You can check your pace infrequently, or leave it till after the run to take a look at how you went.
If you’re an experienced runner, add some fast finishing long runs to your program, to get a sense of how much you can push towards the end of a race.
Don’t look at your GPS on your recovery runs. Easy rounds and recovery runs have very little to do with pace (unless your coach is telling you you’re likely going too fast). Their effectiveness lies in their ability to help your body recover, build strength in your legs and your mind, teach your body to spare glycogen, and improve your body’s aerobic capacity.

You can get a sense of just how easy your long run can be by downloading our eBooklet here

You need to develop an innate sense of pacing in training. By implementing some of the above strategies, you’ll become less dependent on your GPS running watch, and more able to assess your level of running intensity by feel, and whether that level of intensity is sustainable over time.

Some training sessions are best done at a particular pace, or percentage of your maximum capacity. GPS devices are awesome for these kinds of workouts. Just know when and how to use them.

Free Yourself From Your Running Watch GPS Watches Running Watches

Make Sense of Your City to Surf Results

Each year I receive lots of text messages and emails after our runners have finished the City to Surf. And each year, these messages convey a mixture of elation and disappointment. This year of course was no different.

As coaches, we probably view your results differently to the way you view them. I thought I’d share a few of the things you should be looking at when you’re analysing this year’s results.

Your Start Group

The City to Surf is like no other race. It’s tough, it’s hilly and there are lots and lots of people. If you’re a front runner, the crowd factor isn’t going to impact you too much. If you’re running with the back of the pack, you’re unlikely to be able to get much of a rhythm going. You also have the disadvantage of coming through the water stations after 50,000 people have slurped, spilt and thrown their paper cups on the ground. You need to slow down a bit through the water stations, just for safety’s sake.

The Weather

Even though the City to Surf is a winter run, it can get pretty hot. Yesterday it was 14 degrees at 8:30am, and 16 degrees at 9:30. Last year the temperature was 9 degrees at 9am, and the top of 16 degrees wasn’t reached until 3pm that day. If you’re comparing this year’s run to last year’s, you need to take that temperature difference into account. Research done on some of the big city marathons has shown that performance decreases with a rise in temperture.

For the top three placegettes, the decrease in performance was a bit less than 1%, for every 5 degree rise in temperature above 10 degrees C. For slower runners, this drop in performance increased exponentially. Unforutnately, the reasearch only looked at the first 300 runners. The 50th placed runners’ performance dropped by 1.5%, the 100th placegetters by 1.8%, and the 300th place getters by 3.2%. 300th place would be a time of around three hours for the marathons in the sample.

If you’re comparing your time from this year’s City to Surf to last year, unless you’re a three hour marathoner, you should expect that your performance would have dropped by more than 3.2% due to the difference in temperature. To put that into perspective, a 3.2% drop in performance on a 70 minute run last year, is equal to about a 72:15 this year.

They Have Age Categories for a Reason

If you were at maximum fitness level in your prime, as you get older, your performance will naturally decline. If you weren’t at peak fitness in your younger years, you’re more likely to be able to maintain your performance simply be increasing your level of fitness.

Age graded performance tables are a great way to evaluate your performance against previous performances, and also across different events. Your age graded percentage show you how you compare to the world’s best of your age and gender. Our coach Richard Sarkies, who has a City to Surf best time of 48:12, set 12 years ago, ran 52:12 yesterday. Comparing these two runs on the age graded tables actually shows he went slightly better this year.

You can use this calculator to compare your own age-graded times.

Make sure you press “Age Grade” next to where you enter your time to get your result at the bottom.

Analysing This Year’s City to Surf Result

Once you’ve established that your time is actually pretty good compared to last year’s cooler weather time or your time of 20 years ago, you can start to learn from your results.

Firstly, you should check if your goal was realistic. When I asked Richard if he was happy with his result, he replied he “couldn’t have gone any faster”. I thought he’d been aiming for around 50 minutes, and when I asked him about that he said something like “that would’ve been nice, but what you hope to get and what you’re able to achieve are two completely different things”. After having quite a long time off rehabbing an Achilles injury, he knew he probably didn’t have the endurance to get him through to the end.

My Race Goals

Not being a massive fan of crowds, or spending hours getting home when I’m sweaty and cold, I’d never done the City to Surf before, so I didn’t really know what to expect. For various reasons, my training over the last 2 years has been intermittent at best, and I knew I didnt’ have the sort of base that’s required to do the race any justice. On top of that, I developed a nasty sinus infection about three weeks out and was laid out, unable to train. So I had a few things to take into account when setting my goals for the race.

My goals were:

To run on feel rather than use any kind of GPS device. (I did use my stop watch to roughly keep track of how I was going at each km marker).
Run conservatively for the first half of the race, and run the second half of the race after heart break hill faster than the first half
Be prepared to walk some of the race if I felt I needed to
As far as time went, I really thought I’d be lucky to run under 90 minutes (my pre-sinusitis goal had been under 80-mostly likely too ambitous)

Goal number one was pretty easy, as I don’t have a GPS device at the moment

Goal number three – I was definitely prepared to walk –in fact I did walk through a couple of the drinks stations to make sure I rehyderated (confession – I had a couple of champagnes the night before-why not since I was treating it as a training run, right?)

Goal number three-the numbers aren’t pretty, but my results do show I ran a fairly even race.

Looking at the split rank (S/Rank) and the race rank (R/Rank) you can see that I moved through the field as the race progressed. Not so rapidly in the second half of the race.

You can also see I ran 36 seconds faster over the back half of the course. I’m not entirely convinced the course measurements are accurate, but they wouldn’t be too far out.

Look at How You Handled Heart Break Hill

Everyone slows down up heart break hill. It’s a reasonably steep, long, relentless 1.4km in the middle of the race, so you should expect to slow down a bit. But how do you assess whether you slowed more than you should?

Looking at my figures, you can see that I pick up nearly 2000 places going up the hill. This means that I ran faster up heart break hill than 7% of the people who were running faster than I was before heart break hill.

These figures alone don’t tell you much, other than I was slower up the hill than 21,082 people. But, using those figures, along with how I felt throughout the race is useful. I felt ok going up the hill. I felt that before heartbreak hill I was running at a pace I’d be able to maintain for 90 minutes. The fact that I slowed down up the hill definitely helped me maintain my pace in the back end of the race. I was exhausted for the last 2 km of the race due to lack of fitness, but it wasn’t running up the hills too hard that did it to me. I was conscious of my form going up the hill, shorter strides, quicker turnover to put less strain on my legs. I used the tangents to make sure I ran the shortest distance possible. All in all, I was happy with how I handled this part of the course.

Another way you can guage how you went with heart break hill is by comparing yourself to some of the front runners. The first few place getters slow down by about 8%, Richard (208th place) slowed down by 21%, and I slowed down 15%. I still think I have a lot of room for improvement on my up hill running, but comparing these figures, I think it shows I’m heading in the right direction.

What To Do With the Data

Use your City to Surf race stats to help you learn for next time. Good race or bad race, you can take note of the stats and how you were feeling on the day, and learn a lot. If you started out at 4:30 pace, and finished up at 5:30 pace, think about how you felt for your first few kms. Remember that feeling, and know that next time, that feeling is tricking you into running faster. You have to feel as if your effort is easier than that next time you race.

If you slowed down dramatically up heart break hill, was it because you’d gone too fast early in the race? Was it because you deliberately slowed down to conserve energy? Or was it because you’re not great at running up hills and you need to build some strength in your legs and work on your hill technique?

If your’e planning on improving next time you race, make some notes now on how you ran, how you felt, what you did leading into the race. What did you do well, what would you do differently next time? When you start to plan your training for your next race, you’ll know what you need to work on.

A Good Day Out

At the end of the day, whatever your result, it was a beautiful day out with nearly 70,000 other Sydney-sider, celebrating living in this awesome city of ours.

And it was a VERY good day out for Hooked on Runing teams. You can see our team results here. link to our results page

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