The Big Problem With Running Too Fast 

Nice video, certainly helpfull. I love your channel. I ran half a marathon yesterday after almost 5 years of injuries. Trained from half february running 3 times a week with your schedule as help. I just changed yoga to some workout and stretching. Thanks!!! My time was 2.24.05 and that was faster then I expected.

Top tip. Use HR and PE more than pace in training. I’ve been doing this a lot recently.

Thank you for this video, I've been struggling to get my head around lactate threshold and you've really made it easy to understand here. I started running a few months ago and I've watched so many of your videos for both information and inspiration. I'm slowly working my way through your whole channel.

For beginners/slower runners out there you can adapt the sessions to just copy the time at the effort so don't do 4-6 times one mile but do 4-6 times 6 minutes since for example if your mile time at this kind of effort is ~8 minutes and you do 6 times a mile you will be toasted, that's ~48 minutes of pretty hard running in one session. As you progress and get stronger you will cover more distance in the same time naturally.

nice video, thanks for that. Good to see Mary again. The break seems to have done her good, she looks fit and rested. Good luck and happiness together.

I have a pretty sorted out schedule....on Mondays I keep it easy and long(Z1,Z2...on Wednesday I do track(Z3,Z4)...on Thursday I train legs in gym...and on Friday I do hill repeats with some easy run...and on Saturday I swim for about an hour...it's been 3 weeks since I started this regime..and I can literally feel myself progressing with each session

Great to see Mary back on track

6 AM in the states. I’m eating this content for breakfast. Thank you for the wonderful info as always!

It would be great to see some videos from Mary with some tips on how to get back to a previous fitness level after a period of sickness or injury. How to deal mentally with the setback/feeling like you've gone backward, and ways to balance trying to build fitness back up vs preventing making things worse.

Great video!

Brilliant and helpful video as usual. I am going to try one of these to test mine. Thank you for the clear and practical options. I laughed out loud twice! Mary "I'll send you off with a cheer 👏" and Ben "Does anyone actually say po-tatt-toe?" So appreciate you both!!

This video is really helpful. Let me try out and will get back

Your fitness has come a long way since playing right back for Maresfield! Loving the content mate, hope you're well. ;-)

Training at your threshold is too hard/fast. The point of knowing your lactate threshold HR/effort/ speed is to make sure you don’t exceed it ( at least not too often).Once you exceed it,the workout becomes much more demanding, requires longer recovery and if repeated too often will result in overtraining (loss of performance, sickness, injury). A Better term would be Sub-Threshold workout. Ideally lactate should be measured to ensure your lactate doesn’t exceed 3.0-3.5 ( if your lactate level at LT is around 4.0). Alternatively If using HR (most of us), and say your measured LT HR is 160, then it probably shouldn’t exceed 150-155 at any stage during the workout Training at this level gives you a solid training stimulus, without the deleterious effects of straying over the LT. Of course harder workouts are required to get race ready, but training under your LT (but not too far below) are workouts that can be repeated regularly (2x / week) year round, without overtraining. Good video, enjoyed it, but maybe you should be aiming for 164 ish max HR when doing ‘ lactate threshold’ workouts Much more bang for your buck

Wow! Your school looks like a bit of alright! Given the 80/20 rule ( assuming it's truth) how much of the 20 should be taken up increasing your threshold and is there limiter in return.?

Great video, thank you for that. It is worth mentioning that you can actually replace mile intervals with longer intervals or even with continuos runs of 15 - 25 minutes.

Hi, great video. Around 9mins you say that for you 174 is around the top of zone 3. Did you mean 4? Otherwise your max HR would be pushing 220. Cheers

Fun video

@thismessyhappy Threshold is not one specific pace. Threshold is a level of intensity. I am a Norwegian distance runner and it frustrates me when people use the term 'threshold' in a unprecise way, because using it right would make people run faster. Then what is threshold intensity? It is specifically the speed you run at while measuring between 2 and 3.5 mmol (Lactate pro 2 device, 2,86 -> 5 on a Taidoc device). This means that you can run faster in a 400m x25 session and measure 2.5 mmol than when you run 2000m x5 and measure 2.5 mmol obviously. The 'threshold-test' you take in a lab is just what your threshold pace is for that specific lab test, and not some universal magical pace you can use to train at. In short; actually measure your lactate, and then compare your heart rate afterwards. Just looking at heartrate zones and calling it threshold is incredibly unprecise, and no single good runner in Norway does this. Hope this makes sense to people.

Ever since I kick myself to not fear and endure zone 4 longer, eventually reaching into zone 5 on track and tempo days, I start seeing fast(er) results. My legs also really need Zone 2 days in between those murder runs and I find it easier to keep things easy now lol It truly is quality over quantity

Hmmm, I am 53 young, living a dream, win Hawaii Iron man at age 55, who cares if it comes true, I don't, it's a dream, and i live it daily, now I bring everything I have learned into these three activities, and news about Dave Scott, even tells me I am on the right path, but i try and go fast, with a low heart rate, and I train that, I believe are bodies get good at what we train, if you train breathing hard, your body learns to do it, if you train not to breath hard, like a surfer, or even a boxer, or even a swimmer, then you get good at that,,,if I am going to win,,,i dont think it will because my heart can beat faster then a young pro, my heart must beat slower, and be much more efficient then everyone,,,like when I run, I try and hold my breath, lol and the longer I can hold it between breaths, is how I see my progress, then say you or anyone runs up on me, I have my breath, and I have trained it, so I try and get you to where you can breath any more, like wresting under water,,,

I ran back when I was in the military, and started back up again 4 years ago. I've ran 4 marathons in the past 2 years. I struggle to hit threshold pace to where I feel lactate buildup in my legs. What mostly slows me down is keeping up breathing wise. I'm overweight (182 cm, 95 kg) and its especially bad as summer weather hits.

Thanks, flgreat information. I was really looking forward to one of you saying "Caaarrrr Chaaaattttt" when you got in after the workout. A bit disappointed!

I wonder what threshold training in that humidity and heat is doing for other adaptations. That might actually be pretty effective. I remember a short blurb in the Science of Running about some adaptations from humidity but cannot remember what they are now.

I subscribed but please i want this question answered. I am running slow in zone 2 and getting faster over the weeks. In 90F, i pass all the “slow” tests except that my HR is 10 higher than zone2 (zone3 -). I feel exactly the same as zone2 in normal temperature. Should I assume that the extra 10 Heart beats are due to the A/C being on, figuratively speaking, and ignore it since I can breathe easily through the nose, talk in full sentences with no issues?

Doesn’t lactate first go slightly down going from rest to exercise in z1-2 when the body is activated and starts breaking down lactate?

HR varies so much based on sport. Inline skating gives a redline HR without even breathing hard. Cycling takes absolute hammering to even get much into Z3. Usefulness of HR might require very consistent and controlled conditions

LT is such a strange concept to me. I've always associated the idea of lactic acid as a feeling in my legs, and I can feel it when I'm cycling hard up a hill. But with running I only get it when I'm running up a super steep incline, which I very very rarely do. However most of my running friends get that feeling in their legs in normal/hard running, so I feel like I have a different experience. When I'm racing or doing workouts I feel limited by how much oxygen I can take in and process, so when I use the terminology "lactate threshold" as applies to myself, it is just a pace somewhere in between my half marathon and 10k race pace, but I don't feel like it is any kind of actual physiological limit. But I feel like that physiological limit does apply to most of my running friends as I find out about how they experience difficult running efforts.

Is there somewhere I can find out what my max speed could be (max efficiency) based on my height and target heart rate? I want to know where I'm at compared to where I might hope to be.

So, maybe I missed it, but what are the great benefits of training lactate threshold? Love your channel btw.

1) 4:30 why is your Zone3 overlapping your zone4? It should not do that! 2) 9:15 Lactate threshold is high Zone4 (literally the definitoin - as you explained in the beginning of the video), not high Zone3.

Using your Garmin or Corps etc and doing their threshold/fitness tests are also great ways to discover your LTHR or LT pace too. Hope the mango smoothie was delicious as always =D Shoutout to Science Mikey :D!

Treadmill is such a luxury item both in your hot humid Thailand or my slippery icy winter Germany. Sadly I have downstairs neighbours so no option. I hate treadmills but in winter I long for one.

For session 1&2, isn't 10K race pace too fast if you want to train -at- the lactate level? (assuming you run sub 1h)

Hi. I’m from Australia a 66 year old coming back from an injury. Should I do 1 of these sessions weekly. 0:00 cheers

Hmmm...I find the same problem using HR to base a tempo run on. It assumes (for me) a flat course and no heat. Just adding heat can up my HR 5-10 bpm...am I working harder...I don't think so. My heart is beating faster mainly to help cool me...but my effort is not greater. Given all that, I find pace a better metric.

So, what is the big problem with running too fast, a statement on the thumbnail? This vid is just a brief description of what LT is and how to measure it in different ways. Thumbnail and content do not match.

My Garmin suggest me threshold workouts and on the settings I can put pace or heart rate. I always start to look at pace and at the end of repeats I look only for Hr. today was 2x19 min

My lung blocks me from running fast. Not my legs …

At 14 minutes into the video I thought we were going to have a "Carrrr cccchhhhaaattt!”

Only think i dont quite understand is the zones. Everything says a different value. I’m a healthy 21 year old that started working out a week ago. Z2 should be 140 right ? When I start jogging I get to 140bpm easily. My average pace is around 8:30 per kilometre. Do you think I should continue with training in z2 or move it a little bit up ward ?

Doing reps at threshold on a track seems like a waste of time. Remember that you should be able to hold it for an hour. So go out and run for 50min with no rest at your threshold heart rate. On the track you are probably running way too fast because you are only doing short reps and it takes a while to get your heartrate up. It doesn't make sense that you'd be so tired after 5min.

how about garmin lactate threshold test? anyone have the some idea about the accuracy?

A great example of why pace is not an accurate metric for this type of training is hill reps/ incline. Your RPE and HR can be spot on threshold (or tempo) whils your pace is something completely else. Now obviously, thats not a smart way of training tempo (or threshold) as it's not really consistent. You can only get perpetual incline and headwind on days when its supposed to be an easy run.

Having a high LTHR as % of max is great, but having a faster pace at LTHR is better. There's so much focus on the former without explaining how to develop the latter.

Tempo is begining of zone 4, threshold is end of zone 4. About 10s per km slower than threshold

Yeah really good content. Maybe I'm just dumb but I always thought tempo was a lot slower than threshold. Like tempo is faster than marathon pace, but not hitting LT2. It's comfortably fast. You are working but not at threshold.

Pretty sure lactate threshold varies with freshness of legs-so if you are tired and it is feeling too hard you are probably over LT irrespective of pace or heart rate (IMHO).

I say “potato - po-tar-toh” too!

Im a poet .. but didnt know it 🤦🏽‍♀️

Let's look at that comment and talk about it. 'My HR of 174 is around the top of Zone 3'. I don't think this can be true, as Zone 3 is 70-80% of HR max. Now I don't know but say Max HR was 200 and resting 35. These are optimistic I think. Could be less and more for the rest HR. As far as I understand you go 200-35 = 165 X 80% (to find out top of Zone 3) = 132 +rest HR (35) = 167. So for these figs (I don't know correct) it would be 167. So how could it be 174, conclusion. you are in the Zone 4 range at 174. However could only be correct if your max was 210, and your rest HR was 35/45. Likely? Maybe not. More likely is less than 200. I did mine and comes to maybe 148 (on basis max is 175) and I was inside that but now am not always. Because of lay offs. This is I think a common error with people on RU-vid. Phily Bowden seemed to think she was running Zone 2 at over 150 HR. Well I doubted it. But is even HR is a reliable indicator of Zone levels. I think not. After all when I re-started running (after cycling albeit with a pacemaker still set at rate response so not getting any training benefit for HR). We know this because my rest HR was only 47 when rate response turned off. And now 42, just above the 40 where my PM refuses HR to go under. So it is likely lower (rest HR). I digress but when I started running I had a 175 max on what is a far slower run. So are we to believe my max is likely higher. But now (before I had Covid and then after a sprained ankle so had some weeks off), my typical run was 138 AV 150 Max (10K run). And in a 5K park run 144/155 but after a warm up of some 2/3K. But now after enforced layoffs (Covid had no lasting impact-running inside a week after diagnosed) it is higher. But my run (not much slower, a bit) was 148/161 (10K) and 152/164(Park run 5K) and now those figures are coming down again because running again (yesterday 141/154). So in summary leave off running and your HR will start to go up , and with a lay off for years will be close to your max. So HR as an indicator for Zones, completely useless. I would say the only indicator for pace is breathing and this is where your perceived exertion comes in. For me as a heart patient with a Dilated Heart I would say HR is almost of no consequence. What stops me running is breathing. Sometimes I cannot run (never happened in US in Florida recently - where I got Covid). So this is related to heat, the more heat for me the better. So also can't take your idea that heat puts up HR seriously. For me that is not the case. My last two runs in England (temps 53F/48F) were 136 Av 145 Max and 136/144. My first two runs in Florida (Weston nr Fort Lauderdale) were 136/146 and 134/145 (temps 73F and 72F). Later runs were warmer (84F and 82F) 135/147 and 130/144. On average pace quicker in Florida by 10-15 secs per mile. So we can see faster and yet HR not much different. So it is only breathing that counts. A point my Garmin device agreed with as put up my estimated VO2 max up to 49 from 48 and now back to 48. What I do is I go as quick as possible so seriously doubt I can do a 1K much faster than the 5K park run. It will absolutely depend on how I am on the day. This may be because of food taken the day before. But another point is I never eat before a run apart from a gel just before because if I do can't run because of breathing. And I do always 2-2 breathing, so as for talking probably can't talk at any pace. Using 2-2 breathing at all times when running gives me increased O2 readings, always 98% whereas before often 94-95 and inconsistent. I have noticed some near elite runners aren't doing it. If doing a finishing kick go to 1-1.

Algorithm love

First woohoo!!! hahaha

I think the lactate threshold is somewhere near the clitoris, wherever that is.

Im about the same speed as you, as fast as the fastest women. I would have laughed too at being passed at line by 1st woman "Good, I didn't overdo it"

One man's tempo is another man's threshold in Trump's America.