Hit the track yesterday evening and performed my 4th MAF (Maximum Aerobic Function) test. This is part of the Maffetone training method, and used to test and evaluate how your training is going and see wether or not you have been improving. I do a slightly altered version than what Maffetone suggests and follow more along what Hadd suggests his famous "HADD post".
Maffetone says to run 5 X 1 mile repeats, all at the same HR and ideally over time you should see 2 things happen. A) your times improve and you get faster, and B) your times become more consistent, as in your first and last miles arent very far apart.
Hadd suggests running 5 X 2 mile repeats, but at varying heart rates. You start with 2 miles at 140, then 2@150, 2@160, 2@170, and end with 2@180. I like this test better because if will show you if training at a lower HR actually makes you faster at all HRs. So since Ive only been running my my HR under 150, doing this test will show me wether or not Ive gotten faster when my HR is above 150. In other words, will my strictly aerobic training make me faster anaerobically? Lets find out!
This was my 4th MAF test, so Ill show all 4 tests so you can see the results, then post some breif explainations...
Since Im doing this all on my cell phone, Im not sure how this is going to look. Hopefully it wilk make sense.
1st test. 2nd test. 3rd test. 4th test
8-24. 9-29. 11-11. 12-26
139=13:43. 135=11:40. 136=10:53. 135=10:44
147=14:03. 146=10:28. 145=9:41. 147=9:53
Skipped. 155=9:17. 157=8:09. 156=8:43
168=10:49. 167=8:01. Skipped. 168=7:40
178=8:47. Skipped. Skipped. 176=6:45
In case it doesnt look very clear, heres an explaination of what your looking at...
Theres 4 colums of 7 rows. Each column represents a MAF test. The first row is the number of MAF tests and the second row is the date it was performed on. Rows 3 through 7 show the avg HR for the each 2 mile run, and the assocociated pace per mile in minutes in order of increasing HR cap. So the 3rd row shows my runs at a 140 cap, 4th shows 150 cap, and so on and so forth till row 7 which shows the runs with a 180hr cap.
Ok, so as you can see (hopefully) I have gotten alot faster in just 4 months. On all but this last test I had to skip out on different HRs due to time constraints. Another thing you might notice is that between the 3rd and 4th MAF tests I have slowed down a little. This is because from 11-26 untill 12-15 I had ran maybe 10 miles due to injuries. This time off, plus very bad eating habits over Thanksgiving, birthday, and Christmas, led to a decrease in performance.
Another thing of interest is my pace with a 180hr cap! Before starting my Maffetone training I was running fast and hard on all my training runs, and doing speed work quite often. Since starting the Maffetone method my HR has seen numbers over 160 vey seldomly, as in maybe 5 times tops! Yet, despite all this slow running for the past 4 months, Ive managed to DROP 2:02 PER MILE!!! And if you look up at my pace with a HR cap of 170, Ive managed to drop 3:09 PER MILE here!!! All of this was done with slow running and staying under 150 BPM. Plus Ive lost about 10 pounds.
I would also be willing to bet that if I were to correct my diet, my next MAF test would yield even better results!!!
Maffetone says to run 5 X 1 mile repeats, all at the same HR and ideally over time you should see 2 things happen. A) your times improve and you get faster, and B) your times become more consistent, as in your first and last miles arent very far apart.
Hadd suggests running 5 X 2 mile repeats, but at varying heart rates. You start with 2 miles at 140, then 2@150, 2@160, 2@170, and end with 2@180. I like this test better because if will show you if training at a lower HR actually makes you faster at all HRs. So since Ive only been running my my HR under 150, doing this test will show me wether or not Ive gotten faster when my HR is above 150. In other words, will my strictly aerobic training make me faster anaerobically? Lets find out!
This was my 4th MAF test, so Ill show all 4 tests so you can see the results, then post some breif explainations...
Since Im doing this all on my cell phone, Im not sure how this is going to look. Hopefully it wilk make sense.
1st test. 2nd test. 3rd test. 4th test
8-24. 9-29. 11-11. 12-26
139=13:43. 135=11:40. 136=10:53. 135=10:44
147=14:03. 146=10:28. 145=9:41. 147=9:53
Skipped. 155=9:17. 157=8:09. 156=8:43
168=10:49. 167=8:01. Skipped. 168=7:40
178=8:47. Skipped. Skipped. 176=6:45
In case it doesnt look very clear, heres an explaination of what your looking at...
Theres 4 colums of 7 rows. Each column represents a MAF test. The first row is the number of MAF tests and the second row is the date it was performed on. Rows 3 through 7 show the avg HR for the each 2 mile run, and the assocociated pace per mile in minutes in order of increasing HR cap. So the 3rd row shows my runs at a 140 cap, 4th shows 150 cap, and so on and so forth till row 7 which shows the runs with a 180hr cap.
Ok, so as you can see (hopefully) I have gotten alot faster in just 4 months. On all but this last test I had to skip out on different HRs due to time constraints. Another thing you might notice is that between the 3rd and 4th MAF tests I have slowed down a little. This is because from 11-26 untill 12-15 I had ran maybe 10 miles due to injuries. This time off, plus very bad eating habits over Thanksgiving, birthday, and Christmas, led to a decrease in performance.
Another thing of interest is my pace with a 180hr cap! Before starting my Maffetone training I was running fast and hard on all my training runs, and doing speed work quite often. Since starting the Maffetone method my HR has seen numbers over 160 vey seldomly, as in maybe 5 times tops! Yet, despite all this slow running for the past 4 months, Ive managed to DROP 2:02 PER MILE!!! And if you look up at my pace with a HR cap of 170, Ive managed to drop 3:09 PER MILE here!!! All of this was done with slow running and staying under 150 BPM. Plus Ive lost about 10 pounds.
I would also be willing to bet that if I were to correct my diet, my next MAF test would yield even better results!!!
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