'Quantifying' Your Training

this isn’t a new topic but I may be coming to the table from a slightly different angle that may make it worth reading on. 

Most attempts at quantifying training are simply attempts at quantifying the stress and adding detail to a specific training session or group of sessions. Each method of quantification has advantages and disadvantages and the shortcomings of objective approaches at quantification are easy to point out. For example, pace and duration can give us a good idea of mechanical stress but gives us no sense of internal stress. It doesn’t take into account heat/altitude/recovery status/etc… We can add subjective input that gives the metric more color, but by itself it paints an incomplete picture. The same can largely be said for power, which is still mostly only a useful tool on the bike. 

HR on the other hand gives a much better sense of the internal stress but falls short on providing clarity on the mechanical stress. A 2hr run in the mountains at an average HR of 145bpm may be an entirely different mechanical stressor than 2hrs flat running at the same HR. The mountain run likely has a higher HR on the climbs (a higher internal stress, while staying a lower mechanical stress) with a lower HR on the descents (a lower internal stress with a higher mechanical stress). 

On top of this, HR is impacted by variables outside of training. This makes it a more powerful tool in ways, but a less reliable one in others. One example is where an athlete may be fighting off a virus and has an elevated HR at the same pace. If they are basing their output off of pace, they may overdo it, whereas basing output off of HR allows for a safer course correction. On the other hand, if an athlete is dealing with a higher chronic training load and subsequently higher levels of fatigue, you will often see a suppression of HR at the same output. This can trick someone into running a bit faster/harder than they should thinking they are still in that ‘easy’/desired output range even if they are working mechanically a bit harder than they should. 

The reasons listed above aren’t attempts to add confusion. Rather, they’re simply reminders that there really are no perfect systems and we should hold any of the objective feedback lightly. For these reasons, some coaches entirely shy away from objective feedback. Others only use objective feedback. There are good cases to be made for both approaches, but I think the best course of action is to have a set of tools at your disposal to guide training and better understand how to use these tools. 

To start, my opinion is that the first step is to better understand RPE. This being the first step doesn’t make it the most basic and as I’ll reiterate below, I find this is a valuable area to revisit, especially if we ever feel we’ve drifted away from trusting it. Most coaches agree that this is consistently the most reliable method so long as an athlete has developed a strong understanding of what it means for them. There are different scales that can be used (Borg Scale measures 6-20, standard methods measure 1-10, and in many ways, you could simplify to easy/moderate/hard). It really doesn’t matter the method you choose, but rather that you develop a strong sense of what each scale means for you. Similar to your doctor asking to rate pain on a scale of 1-10, a 10 may look far different for someone after giving birth than if their worst experience up to that point was a stubbed toe! In Training Peaks, there is a section that you can fill out on a scale of 1-10.  On the other hand, I’ll often describe training as easy/moderate/hard and understandably this can feel a bit ‘basic’ but reliable once understood.

So, how should we think about RPE/what do I mean by Easy/Mod/Hard? I won’t add complications by discussing the physiological basis for each here (more on that below), but the talk test is often referenced. Easy is comfortably holding a discussion with a training partner. Moderate is managing sentences, but we aren’t just ‘gabbing’ like we would at easier outputs. Hard is a word here and there, but stringing together words is physically difficult and mentally our focus is elsewhere. I understand this may be dissatisfactory for some and that’s why there are opportunities to layer in complexity listed below. However, the more I know, the more value I give this system for a variety of reasons and basic/simple doesn’t imply ineffective. 

Now…we need to decide if we even want to add complexity and if so, what tools are worth employing to add objective color to our understanding of RPE. There’s nothing wrong with tracking pace/grounding RPE in pace, but it’s important to understand the possible pitfalls of doing so. As we all know, there are days when a pace feels easier/harder than others. If we think that x-pace is our ‘easy run pace’ and hold true to that despite how it feels any one day, we’ve started to outsource our intuition and undercut the trust we have in feel. Additionally, the body may be giving us signs that we need to course correct, but we’ve made the decision that our watch/the paces it’s showing knows more than our bodies. Spoiler…one is far more complex and evolved to paint a more accurate picture than the other. For the intent of this, we can lump power into this same category as well as grade adjusted pace. I won’t dive too deep into the shortcomings of pace on trail/the other variables that undercut its usefulness as we all know them. 

This same thought holds true for HR. In the past I’ve run well below where I knew my ‘easy’ HR was and still felt like I was working pretty hard. Other days I’m above that value and feel like I’m hardly working. The HR feels more honest as it takes into account more variables, but it’s similarly far from perfect and I often find it adding confusion and distrust towards my sense of RPE. In those moments, RPE should be the default but often HR is what I listen to more closely and that’s ultimately the wrong approach. 

Thus far, I’ve come across as the world’s worst salesperson and why would we ever lean into the objective training measurements?! As a coach, they give me more detail and context. I can better track and understand training history and use that information to inform best practices moving forward. Additionally, they allow for me to double check that the subjective experience (or one relayed) is in line with the objective one - not that I don’t trust any of you :)! 

As an athlete, I have become uncertain if the added information is worth paying attention to. On the one hand, these objective markers can increase confidence and give us a better sense of what goals are truly realistic. If I want to run a 3hr marathon and am doing the specific work at 6:00min/mile, I can confidently change my goals! If instead I’m running that work at 7:30min/mile or am squeaking out the specific pace at a HR that will obviously not be sustainable for the duration, I may want to reconsider my goals. I think…at best they help us to be more realistic and at worst they give us a place to be self-critical and chip away at trusting our athletic intuition. I’m not suggesting we avoid using these tools (as I personally love the feedback as a coach), but I am suggesting we be intentional with how we utilize them and heads up with the potential repercussions of doing so. 

So…how might I suggest we do utilize them? First, we use them to confirm our sense of RPE versus using them to define our sense of RPE. If you are just opening up a brand new HR monitor, wear it on runs for a week/two/month and don’t even look at the feedback in real time. Instead, wait until after the run. Write out your RPE/how you felt/etc… and then open up the HR file. Take notes of how it looks/changes/etc… and how that pairs with the felt experience during the run. When I open up training files, I’m generally looking at this information as well, but I think it’s valuable to go through this exercise yourself to better understand how HR is responding for you personally. 

Next, I’d start to guess and check during runs. I’ve discussed this before, but every 5/10/15 minutes, guess where your HR is based off of RPE and the HR graphs you’ve studied and see how close you can get. This is weirdly a very fun game and can keep the monotony of training a bit more engaged! We’re still using RPE as the default, but seeing how it lines up with the objective side of things as well! 

Lastly - and…some may push back to this being the last course of action - we can try to better define HR ‘zones’ through at home ‘testing’ or testing in a lab setting. This may seem like the obvious starting spot, but my fear is that works the direction opposite of what I think is best long term. Instead of gaining confidence on our subjective experience, we only look to the objective side of things to discern the quality of a session. 

These steps aren’t just for those interested in exploring HR feedback as a new tool either. To bring this back to me, I’m in the process of going through these as well. My original relationship with the sport had very very little quantified feedback and I’m not convinced that increasing the amount I quantified made me any better as a runner. It certainly made me a bit more neurotic and increasingly disconnected from trusting myself/my training/my fitness/etc… 

This write up doesn’t go into the finer details of how to then use objective from a prescriptive lens but the purpose is to decide whether or not they’re even right for you to begin with. Again, if we’re using an accurate HRM, I love this. I’d prefer it for everyone as a coach. However, I don’t think everyone should be using one in real time to make changes to effort/pacing/etc… That’s not a judgment statement on one’s level of expertise as I think I fall into that category of someone who should only use it to add color in a historical context.