Road To The Sham Part II: MAF(fing) A!

So I put the MAF to the test this weekend. Not going to work. The standard 180 minus your age as top HR during a run had me walking. We're talking 42 minutes to cover 3.4 miles and that's with me deciding at mile 2.5 to up my "max" by 10 BPM.

No way, no how I take a "long run" with that kind of pace. I simply do not have the time for that. at the rate I was walking, cause that's what I was doing, it would take me 2.6 hours to complete 13 miles.

Absolutely not having that.

Why was I walking so much? I had read that when people start out they do a lot of walking so I did expect to do some walking. I particularly expected it at hills. Level ground though? I was going so slow it was impossible to jog much less run.

So the next day when I took my usual walk I noted my heart rate because I wanted to know why I was having this issue. Lo and behold my walking HR was 20 beats lower than my calculated MAF rate. Explains a lot. There is no way that I could maintain a MAF rate of any speed that did not involve extremely poor form running (shuffling).

So what to do?

So in my self-imposed "slow" runs I had put a limit on my speed which corresponds loosely to a modified MAF of +15 BPM over MAF calculations. For me this is a very easy jog. since I am prone to "discovering" that I'm running 30+ seconds per mile faster than target pace, I'll be paying far more attention to my heart rate for the remainder of my runs.

I've watched other runners say they do something similar, in terms of modifying their MAF calculation to accommodate their fitness levels so I don't think my mods are unreasonable. The principle is to run aerobically and that's what I'm going to do.

As a side note, Just so you know just how much easier it is to run on a treadmill, I did a MAF run on a treadmill. My pace there was FAR faster than what I did over the weekend ( by 4 minutes/mile). So clearly the miles done on a treadmill do not match what you do on the road, by a long shot. -Update So this afternoon I went and tried my MAF test on a track. Completely different results; ~8:20/mile which is about what I had determined as a good slow pace for me. I'm going to guess that the street route that I was on was a problem and perhaps I was anxious. Also I'm not sure my walk heart rate is as high as I thought it was. Perhaps because it was early and I hadn't drunk much or eaten.

So I'm satisfied with that result. If, during the next few months I can drop 20 seconds off that rate I'd be very happy.