You don’t need a time trial or lab test to know whether or not your training is working.
Testing absolutely has a place at Higher Running, and we do use it. We can use testing to establish or refine an athlete’s training zones and paces, particularly when an athlete has access to a sports physiology lab where lactate and gas exchange can be measured directly. This can give us a much clearer picture of physiological markers like LT1 and LT2. A lactate threshold heart rate field test can also help refine zones, but it isn’t as precise as laboratory testing. There’s also using time trials or short races to dial in pacing.
That said, we don’t need to test constantly to know whether an athlete is adapting.
The key is looking for trends across repeated workouts. A single workout can be influenced by sleep, stress, hydration, fueling, temperature, terrain, and accumulated fatigue. But when we see consistent changes under similar conditions, those trends can tell us a lot about how an athlete is responding to training.
Here are some of the signs we look for:
Is your pace improving at the same effort and/or heart rate?
This is one of the clearest (and most fun!) signs that fitness is improving. As your aerobic system adapts, your heart can pump more blood with each beat, your blood volume can increase, and your muscles can become better at delivering and using oxygen. Improvements in running economy can also mean you use less energy to maintain a given pace. Together, these adaptations can show up as faster paces at the perceived effort and heart rate.
Last week I got to tell my athlete Sherry that her pace on a 10 x 3-minute threshold workout was about 10 seconds per mile faster than the last time she did it a month ago, at almost the exact same heart rate. Same treadmill, and the room was still 80 degrees, so conditions were very similar. That’s a meaningful sign that her training is working, no test needed.
This shows up from the other direction too: if your threshold pace stays the same but your heart rate is now 5+ beats lower at that pace, that’s another sign of improved efficiency. This may be a reason to consider whether your current training paces need to be adjusted.
Is your heart rate decoupling less over long efforts?
During a long, steady effort, heart rate can gradually rise even when your pace stays relatively constant. This is often called cardiovascular or heart rate drift. Heat, dehydration, fatigue, and the length of the effort can all contribute to it.
Some drift is normal. But if you see less drift than you used to during a similar effort, in similar conditions, that’s a good sign. It suggests you’re becoming better able to maintain your pace and effort over time without the same cardiovascular strain.
Just be careful about reading too much into a single run. Temperature, hydration, fueling, terrain, and accumulated fatigue can all affect heart rate, so we’re looking for trends over time.
Can you sustain more work at the same relative intensity?
Maybe you started with 2 x 10 minutes at threshold. Later on, you can handle 2 x 20 minutes at a similar pace and intensity.
That’s a meaningful sign of adaptation. You’re becoming better able to sustain a high level of effort for longer without your pace and/or form breaking down. Improvements in aerobic capacity, muscular endurance, and fatigue resistance can all contribute to this.
The goal isn’t simply to do more for the sake of doing more. We want to see an athlete gradually become capable of handling a greater workload at a similar relative intensity.
Is your body getting more resilient to hard training?
Maybe your first hill workout left you really sore and fatigued for several days. Eventually, you can handle that same workout, or even a slightly bigger one, with less soreness and less lingering fatigue.
That’s another sign that your body is adapting to the training load. Your muscles, connective tissues, and nervous system can become better equipped to handle repeated training stress, while your ability to recover between sessions improves.
Again, we’re looking for a pattern rather than judging adaptation based solely on how sore you are after one workout.
How We Track This at Higher Running
Every Higher Running athlete has a workout history sheet where we track things like pace, heart rate, RPE, and conditions for many of their key workouts.
It always makes a coach’s day to be able to tell an athlete something like:
“You ran this 8 seconds per mile faster than last time, and your heart rate was almost exactly the same. That’s great progress!”
It’s always important to be mindful that conditions are an important part of that comparison. If you’ve been running through 80-90 degree Fahrenheit summer heat and suddenly you’re running in 60 degree Fahrenheit temperatures, your pace will likely improve even if your fitness hasn’t changed. The reverse is true, too. Moving from cooler to warmer conditions can slow your pace without meaning that you’ve lost fitness.
That’s why we don’t look at any single workout or number in isolation. We’re looking for trends across repeated workouts and considering the conditions surrounding them.
We track these signs for both road and trail athletes, it just looks a little different for trail athletes.
You don’t need to test constantly to know whether you’re getting better. Sometimes, the best evidence is already sitting in your training log.
If you’re looking for help interpreting your training and seeing these kinds of improvements, find out if 1:1 coaching is right for you with a free 20-minute introductory coaching call. Send us a message if you’re interested. We’d be happy to hear from you!
-Coach Sandi Nypaver
