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Lactate testing

by by Andy, Answer by Marius

Myself doing lactate testing on my finger

Myself doing lactate testing on my finger

Lactate testing is usually not something you need to do in your training. But if you are training 7-10 sessions weekly and is ambitious in the sport it can be the way to go. I have done over 5000 of these myself.

Now, both the question and answer here can be quick technical though. I do not intend this to be the "normal" case on this site, just for this one time ;)

I received this question :

Hi Marius,

I did a treadmill lactate test and got these results:

2 mmol/ 15 km/h at 172, 4 mmol/ 17 km/h at 188.
My maximum heart rate is 205. So my anaerobic threshold is at 92 % of my maximum heart rate, and the aerobic threshold at 83% of maximum heart rate.

When I'm doing some tempo running I normally can just reach a heart rate of 175-180. Otherwise it feels just too hard. you once mentioned that it's not good to spend a lot of time at aerobic threshold except in specific marathon progression.

My numbers also aren't in line with your zone three training. In zone three i would always run around aerobic threshold.
My easy running is always under 70 % of max heart rate and I feel comfortable with it.

I hope you can give some helping information
Greetings from Andy

Hello and thanks for the question.

My answer to this is quite simple. Because the lactate test is usually done indoors on a treadmill and because of its nature (quite long in duration at a very progressive pace) you usually get some degree of cardic drift when doing the lactate testing.

What this means is that you get abnormally high heart rate when compared to lactate, a large factor being the sweating you are doing during the test.

The result is an "abnormally" high heart rate - and how much "off" this is compared to outdoors varies from one individual to another.

My own experienc with this is a lactate test a few years ago. It was done on a Monday, with heart rate at anaerobic threshold 181 and my max is only 192. On the next Thursday I did a lactate "field test" outdoors and my threshold at that time was only 172. At 181 on the other hand I reached 4.8 outdoors vs. the 3.0 as my turnpoint indoors.

Point is : use the lactate testing indoors first and field test outdoors 4-5 days thereafter. Use the indoors test as a "reference" for tests done under the same kind of environment later and do the same for the outdoor test.

All the best,
Marius


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Lactate testing

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May 27, 2009
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starstarstarstarstar 		Question re; threshold
by: Matt

Hi Marius,

Thanks for the great site and insights.

In relation to the above...I get a bit confused on occasion re; the best pace to use for the specific 'threshold' sets.

I see some comments that say 'half marathon is right at theshold', and the other comments pertinent to threshold saying something like 'just under marathon pace'.

For the recommeded '1-hr' of pace work as suggested to the marathon runner, I am guessing closer to marathon pace/circa 80% Vo2 max might be more suitable.

Is it a case also of the shorter the run and/or if broken into, say, 1K intervals, then the closer you can run to the threshold.

In the past I had read your suggestion of training at circa 0.5Mmol under threshold...but again, I am confused if the threshold referred to is 1-hr pace/half mara pace or mara pace (approximately). What is the best 'pace' to train at for LT training in sets of 30-40 minutes?

Certainly for me, there is some difference in stress between, say, a threshold run at marathon pace (cira 3:49/km) and one done at 3:40/km or so. I guess my 1-hr flat course race/time trial pace would be circa 3:36/km (HR about 171, Max 191, rest HR 34) or thereabouts, if that helps.

Also, does a low rest HR influence the HR on easy sessions at all? I have no difficulty running at <120 H (easy! :-) if required, where some of my training pals are much higher comparatively at the slow speeds.

I appreciate any insights, and sorry if this post is too technical or too many questions. :-)

Thanks and kind regards,

Matt
Sydney, Australia

Answer by Marius :

Hi Matt,

Thanks, those are some excellent questions !

Let me explain ; my personal experience is that the most accurate way of running "threshold training" is staying at a lactate level of around 3.0 mmol/l during the sessions (vs. about 4.0 that some literature say - but that 4.0 figure is largely based on athletes that does not have long enough endurance background. The longer you train your endurance, the lower this figure will be !) You can vary from around 2.2 to 3.3, which seems ideal.

In terms of heart rate this is approximately 80-87 %, though expect a variation from morning to afternoon of about 5 beats lower in the morning.

In terms of pace, my personal experience is that this is between your marathon pace and your half marathon pace, depending on where you are in your training cycle. In my case, the threshold before my 13.06 5k (measured 5 days before) was 2.53-54 pr km at 3.0 mmol/l, at 87-89 % of maximum heart rate (you can push this threshold heart rate higher when you are in peak shape) and I could easily stay there for the intervals. This pace would be between my marathon and half marathon pace.

This pace is slightly affected by the length of the intervals like you suggest. I use 6 min intervals as a reference. For 3 min intervals, you can push this 1-2 sec down/km, for 10 min you have to add 1-2 sec/km while for continous marginally up again.

Kind regards,

Marius

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