{"id":1970,"date":"2025-11-03T13:04:51","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T13:04:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/liberatingsolution.tech\/design-demo\/leinster-physical-therapy\/?p=1970"},"modified":"2025-11-03T13:04:51","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T13:04:51","slug":"training-lchf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/liberatingsolution.tech\/design-demo\/leinster-physical-therapy\/training-lchf\/","title":{"rendered":"Training LCHF"},"content":{"rendered":"

Training for endurance has been part and parcel of who I am since I care to\u00a0remember. I have competed\u00a0in various different endurance events over the last 25 years. Starting off in schools cross country races so many years ago, has led me on an educational and experimental journey.\u00a0The transition from an ordinary healthy western diet to a low carbohydrate high fat (lchf) diet is part of that journey.<\/span><\/p>\n

I, like many skeptics thought I couldn\u2019t sustain myself with such an approach. Normally, regular weekly miles at 50 \u2013 70 miles per week required copious amounts of pasta, rice, potatoes, bagels, etc. Then there was the recovery drinks\u2026.<\/p>\n

Heart Rate Zones<\/h3>\n

Before beginning lchf I had been training modestly at about 20-30 miles per week at various heart rate zones. I had determined my lactate threshold from a VO2 max test I had done previously. I also did some calculations based on the principles set out in Friel & Byrns\u2019, \u201cGoing Long<\/a>\u201c. Based on this information my zones look like this:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Zone 1<\/td>\n140-150<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Zone 2<\/td>\n150-160<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Zone3<\/td>\n160-170<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Zone 4<\/td>\n170-185<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

 <\/p>\n

Training Intensities<\/h3>\n

From this information I was able to work out\u00a0different heart rate zones for different training intensities.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
VO2 max<\/td>\n177-176<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Lactate threshold<\/td>\n153-169<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Marathon pace<\/td>\n147-163<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Long\/medium runs<\/td>\n138-156<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Aerobic<\/td>\n130-150<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Recovery<\/td>\n<141<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Note my aerobic intensity correlated to between 130-150. This is a zone I would become very familiar with.<\/p>\n

I had completed the\u00a0Dublin City Marathon<\/a>\u00a0in 2013, running from 55- 75\u00a0miles per week using these intensities. My training was based around my long run with\u00a0tempo runs<\/a>,\u00a0intervals\u00a0<\/a>(1 mile repeats), and easy runs making up the remainder. My long runs started out at 15 miles and topped out at 22 mile. Most of these long runs were ran at my long run\u00a0intensity (138-156) with the last 6-11 mile at the high end of my marathon race pace (155-163). Tempos were ran at lactate threshold pace as part of a medium long run, and ranged from 5-9 mile at tempo. Intervals were ran at the high end of lactate threshold pace. This training plan delivered a 3.02.30 marathon with an average mile split of 6.58\u00a0minutes per mile.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

LCHF Approach<\/h3>\n

My lchf training began as \u00a0a 3-4 mile run 3 times weekly at my aerobic max (135-145). I progressed frequency until I got to 6 days a week, before increasing mileage. Note\u00a0all<\/em>\u00a0my runs were in my aerobic zone only. There were no tempos, intervals or marathon pace runs.<\/p>\n

We know from previous\u00a0articles<\/a>,\u00a0we predominately burn fat when in our aerobic zone. Therefore the reason behind\u00a0only<\/em>\u00a0using this training zone, was to encourage my body to burn fat for fuel. This will allow me to recover better, run longer and require no additional food while running. The more time I spent at the top end of this zone, the better my body was able to utilize fat for fuel and the faster I ran.<\/p>\n

I did monthly \u00a05 mile time trials to see if there was any improvements. I was progressing so quickly that there was no need for the monthly tests. I was getting faster on a weekly basis over longer distances. The average pace that I could hold for 5 miles, was extending to\u00a08, 10, 12 miles etc. The improvements shocked me, so much so, that after\u00a05 months I have gone from 5 miles with\u00a0an average heart rate of 144 \u00a0at 8.15 per mile to 17\u00a0miles at an average heart rate of 144 at 6.48 per mile. The only increases from week to week were mileage and frequency.<\/p>\n

I then took it one step further to see if this training method had any negative effects when I ran above my aerobic threshold and delved into my anaerobic zone. I ran a 20 mile race a few week ago at an average heart rate of 159 (way above my 145-150 aerobic zone). My average mile split was 6.37 minutes per mile. During this race I ate only a 1\/4 of a banana at mile 12 and drank only water. This has proved to me that not only has\u00a0lchf \u00a0in conjunction with aerobic only training, improved both my aerobic and anaerobic endurance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Training for endurance has been part and parcel of who I am since I care to\u00a0remember. I have competed\u00a0in various different endurance events over the last 25 years. Starting off in schools cross country races so many years ago, has led me on an educational and experimental journey.\u00a0The transition from an ordinary healthy western diet […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1971,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-running"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/liberatingsolution.tech\/design-demo\/leinster-physical-therapy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1970","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/liberatingsolution.tech\/design-demo\/leinster-physical-therapy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/liberatingsolution.tech\/design-demo\/leinster-physical-therapy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liberatingsolution.tech\/design-demo\/leinster-physical-therapy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liberatingsolution.tech\/design-demo\/leinster-physical-therapy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1970"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/liberatingsolution.tech\/design-demo\/leinster-physical-therapy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1970\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liberatingsolution.tech\/design-demo\/leinster-physical-therapy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/liberatingsolution.tech\/design-demo\/leinster-physical-therapy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1970"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liberatingsolution.tech\/design-demo\/leinster-physical-therapy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1970"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/liberatingsolution.tech\/design-demo\/leinster-physical-therapy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1970"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}