So today starts my first day of training with Tim Waggoner aka Tim Luchinsky, aka Lucho from Endurance Planet.
Lucho was a bastard to track down, despite being showcased on Endurace Planets podcasts on a weekly basis in Ask the Ultra runner and Ask the Coaches he does not really have a website, or a phone number or advertise his coaching services at all.
He has a blog http://joghard.blogspot.co.uk/ and if you can find him he is on Facebook. I did try to make contact many times through these channels with no real response then one day I got lucky. Lucho was impressed with my persistence and we began to discuss the future.
I have taken 6 weeks or so off from running, riding, swimming in general and just enjoyed myself, sometimes a little too much. I have trained at MAF pace in general. MAF pace is the aerobic heart rate zone made famous by Dr Phil Mafetone. This will help me to start the training Lucho will set as he is a big believer in this method of raining in the same way I am.
Basically it is a method where you train to a comfortable aerobic heart rate zone. The allows your body to burn mostly fat and give you a decent aerobic engine. When most of us race an Ultra marathon or Ironman it is almost always or should always be at our MAF pace.
To determine your own MAF rate simply take your age from 180 and then consider a couple of questions first.
Have you been injured in the last 2 years, if yes remember to minus 5 beats.
Have you training at a regular rate for the last 2 years if not take off the same 5 beats.
If you have been training regularly fr 2 years without any real issues then add 5 beats.
if you have trained for around a year without any real injury issues then just use the 180 minus your age number.
in my case I am 44, so 180 - 44 = 136 then I add 5 beats as I have been training for years with little or no injury so my MAF zone is 141. I train mostly within a range of this zone between 130 and 145. this give me a little flexibility and allows for fatigue.
When I started training for the 2013 season I performed a MAF test which consists of a mile gentle warm up then 3 x 1 mile loops of a local lake and I recorded the time of each mile repeat. The results were as follows
Mile 1 @ 11.45
Mile 2 @ 11.50
Mile 3 @ 11.55
The times do get slower as you tire but it shows how bad my aerobic engine was despite many years of training.
At my peak racing this year I performed the same test with the following results
Mile 1 @ 7.45
Mile 2 @ 7.50
Mile 3 @ 7.52
A significant improvement! this is all done at the same effort level and HR zone of 141.
Following my 6 week break I have done another test and am pleased to see that my fitness has not really dropped that much and I can happily run at a pace of 9.30 at my current MAF range. Now that I am back into training I look forward to really dropping this pace and hope to achieve a pace of around 6 minute miling as I believe that is possible with the right coaching and patience.
I recently bought a wonderful Heart rate monitor which is strapless and has Bluetooth technology. It's called the Mio Alpha and not only does it looks great and perform brilliantly it has no bloody strap to chafe into my chest and drive me crazy on long runs. You can get one here
Mio Alpha Strapless Heart Rate Monitor Watch
Lucho was a bastard to track down, despite being showcased on Endurace Planets podcasts on a weekly basis in Ask the Ultra runner and Ask the Coaches he does not really have a website, or a phone number or advertise his coaching services at all.
He has a blog http://joghard.blogspot.co.uk/ and if you can find him he is on Facebook. I did try to make contact many times through these channels with no real response then one day I got lucky. Lucho was impressed with my persistence and we began to discuss the future.
I have taken 6 weeks or so off from running, riding, swimming in general and just enjoyed myself, sometimes a little too much. I have trained at MAF pace in general. MAF pace is the aerobic heart rate zone made famous by Dr Phil Mafetone. This will help me to start the training Lucho will set as he is a big believer in this method of raining in the same way I am.
Basically it is a method where you train to a comfortable aerobic heart rate zone. The allows your body to burn mostly fat and give you a decent aerobic engine. When most of us race an Ultra marathon or Ironman it is almost always or should always be at our MAF pace.
To determine your own MAF rate simply take your age from 180 and then consider a couple of questions first.
Have you been injured in the last 2 years, if yes remember to minus 5 beats.
Have you training at a regular rate for the last 2 years if not take off the same 5 beats.
If you have been training regularly fr 2 years without any real issues then add 5 beats.
if you have trained for around a year without any real injury issues then just use the 180 minus your age number.
in my case I am 44, so 180 - 44 = 136 then I add 5 beats as I have been training for years with little or no injury so my MAF zone is 141. I train mostly within a range of this zone between 130 and 145. this give me a little flexibility and allows for fatigue.
When I started training for the 2013 season I performed a MAF test which consists of a mile gentle warm up then 3 x 1 mile loops of a local lake and I recorded the time of each mile repeat. The results were as follows
Mile 1 @ 11.45
Mile 2 @ 11.50
Mile 3 @ 11.55
The times do get slower as you tire but it shows how bad my aerobic engine was despite many years of training.
At my peak racing this year I performed the same test with the following results
Mile 1 @ 7.45
Mile 2 @ 7.50
Mile 3 @ 7.52
A significant improvement! this is all done at the same effort level and HR zone of 141.
Following my 6 week break I have done another test and am pleased to see that my fitness has not really dropped that much and I can happily run at a pace of 9.30 at my current MAF range. Now that I am back into training I look forward to really dropping this pace and hope to achieve a pace of around 6 minute miling as I believe that is possible with the right coaching and patience.
I recently bought a wonderful Heart rate monitor which is strapless and has Bluetooth technology. It's called the Mio Alpha and not only does it looks great and perform brilliantly it has no bloody strap to chafe into my chest and drive me crazy on long runs. You can get one here
Mio Alpha Strapless Heart Rate Monitor Watch
So it's off to train now and look forward to some brilliant results with my new coach
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