Getting a lactate metre has transformed my sub threshold training
A bit of a sensationalist title but it has really helped me hone in on my personal physiology. This post is mainly to demonstrate how everyone's physiology is different and if you have the chance to use different data sources such as HR,RPE, talk/breathing tests and lactate testing you can hone in more on your personal physiology.
I've been doing NSA for several months now and had just been doing the standard time trial and then using lactrace/bakken calculator to set my paces. I recently got a lactate meter and it has reminded me that these calculators are designed for the general population/as a rough guide and your own physiology may be different.
As an example I had a threshold pace from a time trial of 3:59. Then using sirpocs book and the online calculator a this meant I was doing reps of
3 mins @ ~4:00
6 mins @ ~ 4:07
10 mins @ ~ 4:12
Religiously not going over 3:59 to stay in threshold pace and HR zones on intervals.icu
However I then got a lactate meter and found that my actual lactate values at the end of these sessions was 1.6-1.9 the longer reps especially were landed on the lower end of this. This ties into me feeling like these paces were very comfortable
Since getting my lactate meter I've found that I need to run closer to 3:53, 3:58, 4:02 to get my lactate to ~ 2.4-2.8 mmol. I've discovered that I have a lactate curve that stays quite flat and then rises very steadily and then gets very steep only when I am right under LT2 and I need a longer time very close to my threshold HR/pace for lactate to really rise or accumulate. I also have good lactate clearance between reps.
This isnt to say that the calculators and sirpocs guidance in the book isn't good general advice but for me it meant I was potentially leaving a lot of gains on the table.
This does now leave me with a question of what to put my lactate threshold pace at in intervals.icu . There is clearly a difference between your "normal" lactate threshold pace and interval lactate threshold pace if you are decently aerobically trained. The problem I'm having is if I leave intervals.icu on what my "normal" lactate threshold pace would be. I'm spending a lot of time in Z5 instead of Z4 and also the load calculations give much higher values due to spending time at +100% of lactate threshold pace, which for most people would be meaning they are accumulating too much lactate or going above LT2 and carrying too much fatigue.
Any thoughts?