Last Friday, I started my anaerobic training after more than 3 months of my MAF training. The purpose of the anaerobic training/speed running workout was to find out my Maximum Heart Rate (Max HR). This activity was done at the ULTRA Oval Track on the early evening of Friday.

After 4 laps of brisk walking, I did five (5) repetitons of 800-meter run or Yasso 800 where I averaged 3:54 minutes. Each repetition was followed with one lap of slow jog. My Average HR for the workout was 168 beats per minute with a MAX HR registered at 178 beats per minute. After the Yasso 800 workout, I did 4 laps of brisk walking as my cool-down workout until my HR registered to 112 beats per minute.

As suggested by Dr Maffetone, there are two ways to find out one’s MAX HR. One is to run at one’s best effort within 3-4 minutes and record one’s highest HR. The other one is to use the suggested formula—208 minus the result of one’s Age multiplied by 0.7.

Based from my first anaerobic workout, I registered a Max HR of 178 beats per minute while my supposed to be Max HR by following the suggested formula is approximately 167 bpm. There is a difference of 11 beats per minute. I hope I’ll be able to adjust my desired Max HR as I do more of my anaerobic workouts.

What was notably good after my first anaerobic workout was that I did not feel any soreness or pain on my legs despite my practice of not doing any stretching or speed drills before my Yasso 800 repeats! I simply do my 10-minute squats after my workout. The 2nd advantage of such workout is that it was quick and short. After 1 1/2 hours, I was out of the ULTRA Oval Track.

There is a need of more anaerobic workouts to really find out my Max HR. One way to do this is to join a 10K run this morning! To prepare for the 10K run, I completely rested the whole day of Saturday.

I joined the Run Doctor Run 10K which was organized by my good friend Eric Pasion of Run For Change. It was a simple race which was held inside the Dasmarinas Village. The last time that I went inside this place was in the mid-90s when I was still active in cycling. The streets are wide and there is no traffic plus they are shaded with tall trees on both sides.

The race started at 6:30 AM with the 10K run being released ahead of the shorter races. I started a very conservative pace of 5:45+ minutes per kilometer making sure that my HR will steadily and gradually increase. It started at 121 bpm until it reached at 160 bpm after running for 3 kilometers. I started to increase my pace for the next 3 kilometers where my Max HR registered at 178 bpm. At the 7th Kilometer, my HR went down to 170 until it peaked again to 175-177 from Kilometer 8 all the way to the Finish Line.

All the amenities you need in a road race were all there. Eric has already perfected the conduct of a road racing event. Everything was perfect, to include the weather!

I finished the race in 55:27 minutes with an average pace of 5:39 mins per kilometer. My HR Monitor registered an average HR of 168 bpm and a Max HR of 178 bpm which is consistent to what I’ve recorded on my first anaerobic workout last Friday at the Oval Track. It seems that I am starting all over again and trying to regain my speed through more aerobic workouts/LSD runs.

I know it will take weeks and months and even years for me to improve my performance using the HR monitor as a form of biofeedback on the intensity of my training and running workouts. I am no longer young to do all those high mileage of training but I am still guided with the basic principles of training for endurance sports—consistency, specificity of training, rest & recovery, and extended goals. My primary goal now is to prevent myself from being injured and have fun in all my running adventures.

Finally, I am back to my regular training!

Thanks to John Avellanosa for the pictures and Jonel of FrontRUNNER Magazine & Eric Pasion for the accommodation.