Endurance Training and The Local Maximum
Changes to my endurance training regimen have produced some fantastic results. And not just minor improvements, but great leaps forward.
Last year, I started exploring heart rate training (and continue it still), but have since realized that heart rate training helps to refine the fitness base that you already have and does little to build it.
I’ve found my results to be remarkably similar to the local maximum theory described in web design, where optimization can only contribute incremental improvements, but innovation can completely reset maximum potential.
…you can only get so much improvement; it is as effective as its ever going to be on its current structural foundation. – The Local Maximum, Joshua Porter, interface designer at Twitter
Heart rate training is the optimization of your body’s current structural foundation.
…you have two choices: continue to try ever-increasing alternatives (optimize) that are small enough to test or to try and make a bigger, structural change that really shakes things up (innovate). – Joshua Porter
This year, I started off with 6 weeks of exclusive heart-rate training–again running an agonizingly slow 12 minute/mile pace–to get my joints conditioned after several months off. Then I moved forward with building mileage on long runs each week (as I did last year), but this time putting a lot of focus on faster runs and strength training in between. On my shorter runs, I’m focusing on speed and letting my heart rate increase as needed to fund the development of my new foundation.
I’m now up to 12 miles on my long run of the week and holding just under 9 minutes miles with a zone 3 heart rate. AWESOME! I’m also seeing sub-8 minute miles on my 3 mile runs. I didn’t even see a hint of this kind of progress when sticking to heart rate training in an attempt to improve.
I’ve changed my structural foundation. By getting physically stronger, learning to run faster and resetting my mental expectations, I’ve created an entirely new maximum. Optimization for incremental improvements will still continue, but now from a point that is much faster and further than I could previously go.
