Should Runners Train By Power, Pace, or Heart Rate?

Carrie Tollefson: Hey, everybody. Welcome to the RunDot podcast. Today we are talking about how to measure the intensities of our workouts. Put more simply, should we pace ourselves by pace or heart rate or power? Well, we want to know what RunDot has to say, so let's find out. And we're joined by professional triathlete and coach Elizabeth James. She's been coaching runners and triathletes since 2014. And I'm Carrie Tollefson, Olympian, broadcaster and your guide to the world of RunDot. We treat the show like any good workout. We'll start with the warmup question. We'll settle into our main set, and then we'll wind down with having coach Elizabeth answer our audience questions on the cool down. Lots of good stuff today, so let's get after it.

Announcer: This is the RunDot podcast, the running show that brings you world class coaching with every conversation. Let's get started with today's warm up.

Warm-Up Question

Carrie Tollefson: All right, Elizabeth, for our warm up question today, what is your favorite movie that features the sport of running as a key part of the action or the plot?

Elizabeth James: Kind of a tough question here because I feel like I like every movie that has to do with running. I'm like, have those on repeat. My husband is pretty probably going to be so disappointed because I'm not saying anything with, like, Prefontaine, but I'm gonna have to go with our classic Chariots of Fire.

Carrie Tollefson: Oh.

Elizabeth James: Exactly. Oh, I'm glad you put the song in because I can't sing what's going on in my head right now, so. Yes.

Carrie Tollefson: Oh, that's so cool.

Elizabeth James: Yeah, like, that's. Oh, I just. I love it. I mean, the running story is fantastic. But then, I mean, you've got those deeper themes of, like, perseverance, faith, personal identity. So it, it just resonates really well with me. I love it.

Carrie Tollefson: Yeah.

Elizabeth James: How about you?

Carrie Tollefson: And on your Instagram, I can see your faith is really, like, at the forefront, so that's pretty cool. I need to go back and watch Chariots of Fire. It's been a long time.

Elizabeth James: There we go. Movie night. We got it set.

Carrie Tollefson: Yeah, exactly. Hey, we could do that with RunDot. May we do the big watch party? We should do that. Okay, well, we'll talk to Andrew about it. But my favorite. Didn't you mention it? Prefontaine? Like, I don't know, it's so tragic and it's hard to be like, that's my favorite movie. Like, the story is so hard. And I kind of know his sister a little bit so just knowing that is. Is weird. And then actually, like, one of my college coaches, you know, he recruited him. Like, it's. There's just, like, this inner twining of all these things with Prefontaine. But just to know how hard he fought for our sport as professional runners, like, that, to me, is so inspiring. And then just to see the clips that they actually have of him running way back in the day, like, just so inspiring. Like, how gutsy and gritty was he? And, you know, I'd wish he wouldn't have gotten in that car that night, but he was so young, and I think we all forget that, how young he was. And he just. He made a terrible mistake. Right. But what a guy. I mean, forever. He is such a legend. And, you know, even my daughter, who is just getting into the sport, is. Is like, yeah, Prefontaine is. That's. He's such a cool story. As. Such a cool story, and. And very inspirational. So, yeah, tell your husband I'm with him on that.

Elizabeth James: Okay. Yes. We still got it in there.

Carrie Tollefson: Well, we want our audience to chime in as well, so we'll ask the question on all of our social media accounts at RunDot for sure. And we want to know what your favorite movie is. Find us on all socials. Everybody let us know.

Elizabeth James: Let's go.

Main Set

Carrie Tollefson: All right, well, let's get in to the main set. All right. So to do any run workout, Elizabeth, there has to be a way for us to measure how easy or how hard we're supposed to run throughout the workout. The most common mistake is that we're going too easy. Right. Or. Or that we're not pushing hard enough. So I want to know how you figure out our power, our pace, our heart rate, all that stuff, and how you train your athletes and now actually how you train yourself.

Elizabeth James: Yeah, I'm. I'm so excited to dig into this today. I feel like this is a very common question that people have as they're getting started in running or as they're progressing. They're like, what do I use? How do I know what I'm supposed to be doing for each workout? What metric do I look at? And so we're really just going to dive in and break that all down for everybody today.

Carrie Tollefson: Yeah. Okay, so this is your first time on the RunDot podcast. I mean, how's it going so far?

Elizabeth James: I think okay so far. I mean, I'm not sweating yet. We'll.

Carrie Tollefson: We'll see. Oh, I am. I was just thinking that I'm like, oh, I'm starting to sweat, like, just starting to think of these workouts and how we're supposed to, you know, figure out how we're doing. But. Okay, so I want to know a little bit more about you first. You're a professional triathlete, but supposedly the run is your fave, which I love to hear, obviously. So how did you get into this whole thing? How did you grow up? Like, were you always someone that thought, I am going to be a triathlete someday, or no, tell me all about it.

Elizabeth James: Yeah, very much had no idea that this is where I would end up. I, I honestly didn't even hear about the sport of triathlon until a few years after college. I didn't understand, like, running as a sport itself either. So to be here in this seat today and say that the running's my favorite, that I love running races, that I'm competing in the pro field for triathlon is kind of, like, still a dream. I kind of came to running via, like, soccer and then my husband. So I, I, I say that I'm a soccer player turned a runner turned a triathlete. We, we just kind of had that progression. Um, so I think I always loved running before I ever even knew that it could be a sport itself. It was just something that I did as part of the game. And yeah, we ran a lot during practice. Um, but most of the time it was with the soccer ball at our feet. And even, like, our long runs coach would have us, like, go out and, I mean, we'd run a few miles, but we were dribbling the entire time. And so I, I didn't really ever think of running as being on its own without a soccer ball at my feet. Um, but then I met my husband, and he was into running. And I, I, I always joke that, like, I got into running to impress a guy. And as I said, he's my husband now. We've been married for almost 15 years, so I think, like, mission accomplished. I was able to, able to impress him enough to get a date. But, yeah, he, he was the fantastic runner. I mean, he ran track and cross country in high school. He ran cross country in college. And so as we started dating, I was like, oh, yeah, I run too. Like, I need to run to stay in shape for soccer. So we'd, like, go out on runs together. And then as we started dating, we dated long distance. So he went to college in Illinois, I went to college in Nebraska. And we would just pick a race, and that would kind of be what we would work toward. Together, but individually, a few states away. And then date weekends were traveling to the race and so, gosh, we had some in Iowa, I mean some in Nebraska and Illinois. We went to Memphis and we would just pick an event, train for it and then we'd both travel and that was kind of our date weekend. So yeah, I picked up running to spend more time with him, impress him, date him. And I'd say it worked out not only for a great marriage, but a lot of fun along the way and led me to the sport of triathlon as well.

Carrie Tollefson: That is so cool. Does he do triathlons, did you say as well?

Elizabeth James: He has done a few triathlons, but I mean he just loves the running. I mean by the time that he got to the run, he was so discouraged. He was like, this is dumb. People are already done. Like, I, I just had no fight left for, you know, the run at the end. I already see people at the finish line. So I mean he, he does all three sports as great cross training. He's a fantastic supporter and Sherpa for me. But I mean, yeah, he, he would much prefer to just stick to the running races than, than anything in triathlon.

Carrie Tollefson: We're, we're flip flop in this household. My husband's a five time IRONMAN and loves doing all of the things and I am like deathly afraid of being on the bike. I like, I get so in the zone on things that I'm like, there is no way someone's gonna open a door and I am not gonna just go right into that car. Like, you know how most people crash on the bike? Like that will be me probably in the first like week of trying to train for a triathlon. So I'm gonna stick to the ground and stick to my two feet on the ground and you know, and I'll, you know, be with your husband on those runs. We'll be cheering for you and Charlie. My Charlie, right? Your husband's a Charlie, right?

Elizabeth James: Yes. Yeah.

Carrie Tollefson: A so nice. Charlies are good guys. I know. Well, what's next for you? Like, are you more of a Half IRONMAN, An IRONMAN? Are you more of a Olympic distance? What do you do? What's your fave?

Elizabeth James: Oh, the longer the better for me. I, I love, I love the full Ironman distance. The, the last couple years I've kind of been coming back from injury and so I haven't raced a full in a little bit. I really just stuck to the half distance this year so that I could keep the runs bit shorter run volume a Little bit more manageable for me, but yeah, the longer the better. So I'm, I'm really looking at going back to a lot of the, the marathons and the full IRONMANs for 2026.

Carrie Tollefson: Do you ever just run a marathon?

Elizabeth James: I, I do. I haven't done it as much once I started competing in the pro field, but honestly that's, that's my most favorite. I mean, even more so than triathlon, like standalone marathon. Um, my husband and I started our journey to do one in all of the 50 states. Of course we, we thought about that after we had done the one in Nebraska like six times. So we, we're like, oh man, like we could be like six more races further along in this journey. Um, I think I've got 19 states done so far and we took a little bit of a pause as I'm kind of focused more on the triathlons. But yeah, we'll, we'll get back to that and go back to a lot of the standalone marathons, I'm sure.

Carrie Tollefson: Have you been to Minnesota yet then?

Elizabeth James: Yes. Yeah, we did the Mankato one. Repeating. Yeah, Mankato is beautiful. And it's because my brother and sister in law were going to law school there at the time. And so, I mean, family visit, free housing, couldn't quite be that. But gosh, there's so many good ones in Minnesota too.

Carrie Tollefson: Grandma's Twin Cities. You need to let me know when you come.

Elizabeth James: Okay, deal. We'll, we'll repeat that one. That'll, that'll be all.

Carrie Tollefson: Okay, good. All right, well, before we talk about pacing a workout by power, pace and heart rate, let me ask you this. When we train, why is it important even to monitor our effort in the first place? Like, can't we just go by feel?

Elizabeth James: I mean, we can go by feel, but monitoring effort and like training in specific zones, it, it really is important, especially when athletes are, are training with purpose. And when I think of, you know, somebody listening to this podcast and really working on their running, I think of it much more as for training than just for exercise. And so yeah, if you're going out and you're exercising, like, you can probably get pretty far just based off of feel. But if we're really thinking about training and, and working toward a specific goal and wanting to increase our run performance, then, then we do want to be specific about how we do that. And training in specific zones allows athletes to target the different physiological systems and therefore we're effectively managing the training benefits of it. So each zone that an athlete trains in corresponds to a particular intensity level that develops these certain adaptations within the body. So it might be that we're building our aerobic endurance, we're working on our lactate threshold, we're trying to, you know, really push up our anaerobic capacity. And we want to do that, you know, with the right amount of time in each of those zones so that we're not under training and, you know, not developing as much as we could, or we're not over training and we're risking illness or injury. And so training with that precision really helps an athlete progress toward their performance goals, helps them manage fatigue, improves recovery, and then, yeah, they just are able to improve when. When they're training more specifically.

Carrie Tollefson: Yeah, but I mean, I. There's so many things and so many ways to do this. So, like how. And what's your best advice on how to best measure power, pace and heart rate while we're training?

Elizabeth James: Yes. Yeah, there, there are a number of ways to do this. And I would say that the best way to measure these metrics is kind of using a combination of tools. So a GPS running watch paired with a heart rate monitor strap, that's probably pretty typical. And then optionally, like, you could have a running power meter like foot pod, and that's going to provide very accurate and actionable data. That that's going to be in addition to your GPS watch and the heart rate monitor chest strap. I think that combination, those three tools is going to get you the most accurate metrics. But I mean, there's such great advances in technology that you don't have to have all of those gadgets to get started. I mean, I think that's one of the things that makes me so excited about the way that RunDot is positioned. You can use RunDot your phone, like carry your phone with you as you run. That's gonna help you record your time and you can still train effectively with that. So I think ideally, yeah, we've got a GPS watch, we've got our heart rate monitor strap on, you know, maybe adding a foot pod onto our shoe. But you don't have to have all of those three things to train well either.

Carrie Tollefson: Yeah, I mean, you would say, first and foremost, just get a watch. If you're gonna invest in something, get a watch that has GPS and, and might give us a rough idea of our heart rates and things like that.

Elizabeth James: Yes. Yeah, I think kind of in that order. Like that that's where we want to start. You know, get. Get a GPS watch. Thankfully, they're not as Expensive as they used to be. I'm very much like, you need to have heart rate. The watches are getting better in terms of giving us an idea of heart rate, but I still think the chest strap is superior and just making sure that that's as accurate as possible.

Carrie Tollefson: Do you remember? You probably don't. I don't even know how old you are. I may be really, like, way older than you, but there was a. The first. I swear, first GPS watch that I had, it was like this oblong type.

Elizabeth James: It was like a bridge.

Carrie Tollefson: Yeah. Yes. And it was heavy.

Elizabeth James: It was heavy.

Carrie Tollefson: And it did not work for me at all. I mean, I mean, I love. Now I am. I use Garmin, but, like, I still. I still have a hard time when I go to the track or even do intervals. Like, for one, I can't really see it anymore, hence my big readers. And also, it's like, for me, I haven't, like, I haven't been as consistent with my workouts to figure out how to do the watch. Like, I can program a workout in there, but if I just go out and I'm like, I'm gonna do a fart like today, and, you know, trying to figure out how to hit the laps and all that, like, the Timex for me is what I used for years, and it just comes naturally. Like, I almost need the old school, you know, coaching. Watch. Stopwatch. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What do you.

Elizabeth James: That would work, too.

Carrie Tollefson: I know, I know it does. What do you use, though, on a daily basis? Like, do you wear an aura ring? Like, do you have just a watch and a heart strap? What are you. What's like, in your routine?

Elizabeth James: Yeah, I've got my Garmin watch. I mean, just like you, I love it. It only comes off to recharge it. So that's kind of. My wrist definitely got the tan. Yes, yes, yes, exactly. And then I have the Garmin heart rate chest strap as well to pair with it. And then I've used the stride foot pod for a number of years. And I. I love that I've had a number of athletes that use it as well. And I don't use it for every workout, especially like where I live right now outside of Dallas. Um, there's not a lot of elevation gain, so most of the time I don't necessarily need that power as a metric. But some of the running dynamics on there that, that reports are. Are just also great, and they're a good way to monitor progress and efficiency as well. So, yeah, I've. I've kind of Got that three prong combination that I was talking about as kind of the ideal setup for, for running.

Carrie Tollefson: And it seems doable, for sure, you know. Yes, I think that's doable.

Elizabeth James: Yep.

Carrie Tollefson: Okay, so we've thrown around these, you know, these words, power, pace and heart rate. And I think just be, I'm going to dig in and let you be the expert here because I think for me as a runner, like, I really haven't used a lot of power, you know, numbers and things like that. Like, I usually have used pace and heart rate, you know, different types of heart rate, resting heart rate versus, you know, what I'm doing at hard intervals and then how I come back down on my resting heart rate. Like, I monitor that quite a bit. But power is different to me. And I don't know if that's something that comes to you from the triathlon side and like when you're biking and swimming and doing things like that or if you've always used it. But I would love to hear how you break down and kind of explain all three of those areas. Power, pace and heart rate.

Elizabeth James: Yeah, definitely. So let's go ahead and just leave power for the end because I think that that's the one that like some people will use, but it's not as common. And yeah, I think maybe, you know, coming from the triathlon side of things and the bike power, I, I find that super interesting because I'm like, oh yeah, we got power on the bike, we got power on the run now too. But let's, let's go ahead and start with pace because I think that this is one that a lot of runners will use and, and probably one that a lot of them start with as well. So pace is really just measuring how fast you're moving and it's expressed as, you know, minutes per mile. So like an 8 minute mile or I mean, depending on where you live, maybe we're talking about like, you know, three minutes per K and we're talking kilometers as well. But this is usually tracked by your GPS device. And I love using pace for workouts because it's directly related to running speed and it's easy to understand, it's widely used. I mean, if you're, you know, going out to a group run and they're talking about like, all right, well this group is doing like 10 minute miles. Here's the group that's doing nine minute miles. This group is going to run seven 30s. Like that's very widely accepted and very widely used within the running space. And so it's a good idea to kind of have an idea of like what your paces are maybe for your easy run or your interval days. Um, it's great to use for races, for workouts, especially those that are on like predictable courses or something that's like a track. Um, I mean I, I always use pace for, for track workouts because, you know, there's no elevation gain. It's very predictable. One of the things that can be a little bit tricky about using pace is that because it's driven by the GPS device, if the GPS signals are unreliable, then you could get a funky reading. One of the things I remember about this is I was running the Chicago marathon and at the beginning, I mean you are surrounded by all of those tall buildings and I'm looking at my watch and I'm like, there is no way that I'm running this pace. And it was reading so slow. I was like, I feel like I'm flying and it's telling me like I'm doing a 12 minute mile. And I was like, I am not going to be anywhere close to my time goals if that's, if that's the case here. And then you know, you get out of the city a little bit out of the interference of those tall buildings and all of a sudden it's like jumping and it's trying to catch up and all of a sudden it's like a three minute mile. I was like, oh man, I'm world record pace here. Like this is great. So yeah, the GPS signals can be interrupted. You know, either big cities or if you're out and you know, you're doing some trail running and you're have all that interference maybe from like a very heavily wooded area. Um, so there can be some interruptions with using pace as well. Um, it can certainly fluctuate with the environmental conditions as well. So I know we talked about, you know, the interruptions from the signals, but also, I mean if you're running on something that's super steep terrain or you know, it's a super windy day, like that's going to also impact your pace. And so those are things where we have to take that into consideration. So yeah, kind of couple pros and cons for using that. But I, I'd say that it's the most typical. And then let's, let's move into heart rate, so. Heart rate. I, I love this actually. And as a coach I'm very much a stickler on like athletes. You need to have this, like you need to have it. You need to understand it, and me as a coach, I want to see this because the heart rate is tracking the physiological response to exercise. So it really shows just how hard your cardiovascular system is working for the demands of the pace that you're running. Um, so I love using heart rate in combination with pace to really understand what's going on internally. And as, as we mentioned, you know, this is widely accessible with chest straps. A lot of the new GPS watches have it built in as a wrist monitor, which, you know, if. If you're always using that and you understand, like, what that correlation is, it can be good. Um, I, I kind of make my athletes get a chest strap just because I find that to be most reliable. But either way, you're really reflecting the internal effort. And that's just, oh, such a helpful metric for really measuring the intensity of. Of the session. The con of this is that there is heart rate lag. And so it's a. It's a lagging indicator, which means that the heart rate takes a little bit of time to respond to sudden effort changes. Like, and the way that I think of this is, you know, like sprinting up a hill. Okay. Once you sprint to the top of the hill, you get to the top and you're like, oh, my gosh, like, my heart rate is pounding. Even though you're stopped at the top of the hill, it's like you don't have that effort anymore, but your heart rate is still catching up. It's like, oh, my gosh, we just sprinted up that hill. And that's what you would see in, like, a data file as well, that you wouldn't necessarily see the second that you start sprinting, that the heart rate responds to that. It's going to take a little while to show that that heart rate has increased. And then you get to the top of the hill, you're not even moving anymore, and your heart rate is still through the roof, and your breathing's like, oh, my gosh. I definitely worked so hard. And so that's. That's probably the biggest con, I would say, is that it is. It is a lagging indicator.

Carrie Tollefson: And then have. Do you have athletes do strides before they do a hard track session or like a temple run on the roads to kind of get their heart ready to go? I mean, it's just like when we do races, right? Like, you'll see a lot of the. The pros or maybe people up front that are trying to really nail a time and they have to get off the line hard. They don't want to go from just thinking around in the corrals to then sprinting. So, like, that's the same for us when we're doing workouts is we want to sort of get our heart rate set, Accustomed to going really hard. And that's why you do those short, fast sprints, to let your heart rate come into it and until it still can take time to get up there.

Elizabeth James: But that helps kind of get the heart ready to go. Yes. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, the strides ahead of the workout, that, that is, it's preparing the body and then you're not going to see as much of a lag because the heart rate's already been up. And so it can. Yeah, yeah, yep. It can get that response a little bit earlier.

Carrie Tollefson: I think people forget to do that. So if you're listening here, like, you know, sometimes they're hard. And especially like for me too now I'm like, oh, I just kind of want to ease into it, which is fine. But if you have a hard workout that you're trying to nail and you have, you know, four by three minutes or something, you don't want to waste that whole first three minutes by just trying to figure out the heart rate. So, like, do those few strides, it doesn't take that many four to six, you know, maybe 50 to 60 meters long, and just take that extra two minutes to do an a hard out and then rest for a second and do another hard back and do that two times and your heart rate will love you for it. And actually the workout will go a little bit better too.

Elizabeth James: I'm so glad you brought that up because I think sometimes people do forget to do it. But also they're like, ah, why do I need to. Like, I'm already gonna be working hard in the workout. Like, why, why do I gotta do these little openers? And why do I gotta do the strides? I mean, that was fantastic explanation right there. Like, we need to do that preparing the body to nail those workouts later. So. Yeah, I mean, you said, I think.

Carrie Tollefson: People, I do think people. Like, even in a marathon, I'm always joking with people. Like, you know, I don't even know how to warm up for a marathon. Like, I'm a 1500 5k gal. Like, I'm used to doing high knees, kickbox, all the things, right? But even like before a marathon in Chicago, for instance, my neighbor ran and he crushed it. Way to go, nick. He ran 239 and I think it was 2:39. Yeah. He broke 240 in his second marathon. Second marathon. He took 11 minutes off. I know. He's amazing, but, you know, when you're standing in those corrals, like, for a long time, and you go from zero to 60, you know, right off the line, you have to figure out. And that could be where you do high knees, and you, you know, you do some running arms and things to just stimulate the heart a little bit, because otherwise it's such a shock to the system that you feel arable. You're like, I'm not gonna be able to run this race. Like, we want to get our mind ready to go, our heart ready to go, and. Yeah. So long story short, do some strides, peeps.

Elizabeth James: Yes, exactly. Oh, love that. I feel like I'm gonna use this clip already, send it to a couple athletes, be like, stop skipping your strides. See, K says you can't skip your strides.

Carrie Tollefson: I know. And I need to practice what I preach, so. Okay, sorry. Back to an I.

Elizabeth James: All right, so, yeah, we've talked about pace, we've talked about heart rate, and then, yeah, let's get into power. So running power, it's really just measuring the force and the workload that your body exerts during running. And as I mentioned, like, this can be captured by those specialized foot pods that you just kind of clip onto your shoe. What I love about power is it's just reflecting the actual mechanical effort, and it's independent of those external factors. So it doesn't matter if it's windy. It doesn't matter if you're on a hill. It doesn't matter if it's hot. Like, power is power. And I think, you know, coming from the triathlon world, we're so used to that on. On the bike. Like, power is power, whatever your power is. Like, it doesn't matter if you're going into a headwind or you've got a tailwind at your back. If you're, you know, supposed to push 200 watts, like, we're pushing 200 watts. And. And we can use just kind of that real time metric for running as well. And this. This can really help pace efforts more precisely, especially if you're on varied terrain. I coached an athlete, and she lived in an incredibly hilly area. We always joke that we were complete opposites. Like, I have to work really hard to find any sort of elevation, and she had to work really hard to find any sort of flat surface. There was one track in her town, and it was typically used by, like, the high school students, and so there wasn't good access. And if she Needed a flat surface. It was a treadmill. And so she's like, I don't want to run on the treadmill, but every time I go out, like, I've got so much elevation gain. And so we were able to use power as a great metric for her because she's going up and down. And it was very difficult for her to do any type of interval work based off of pace because of the very terrain. And so we would use power as a metric so she could keep. Keep a steady power number even though the pace was actually fluctuating depending on if she was going up or downhill. So, yeah, it's. It's fantastic. I love it. It can be an added cost for people that, like, aren't as familiar with power. It can be a really, like, confusing thing to get started because they're like, wait, my pace is going to change, but the power is the same. So I would say it's maybe not as intuitive for people to use at first, but a lot of athletes that start using it, love it.

Carrie Tollefson: Okay, so I want to break this down just a little bit because I have to be very frank. I have never used any kind of power as a tool for me when I was training, and that is not the last few years. My training has not been very specific. So I want to understand. So, like, for instance, when we know our heart rates, a lot of times when we're getting really specific with it, we'll go and do a VO2 max test or we'll get some kind of testing done so we really know the proper numbers for us to use and not just the standard formula of 220 minus your age. Right, like that. That's close. But a lot of us are different than that. Right? Like, every heart is different, so you can't just have one formula for it. So how would I start with this power type of training? Like, do you just go and learn how you are when you're running, like, by watching some of the metrics? Do you have a test for it that you would recommend to go get, like a VO2 Max for your heart rate? How do you figure it out as an individual, but then also have your coach, like, know what kind of numbers to tell you to use?

Elizabeth James: Yeah, it's. It's fantastic. So a lot of, like, run out athletes that are maybe starting to implement power that they haven't done it before. You can just add power as another metric to the assessments that you've already been doing. And so, for example, like, pardon?

Carrie Tollefson: In the app.

Elizabeth James: Yeah, yeah, definitely. And so, like, for example, I've. I've had a couple athletes and I mean, this is on the try dot side, but it certainly correlates to the run outside as well. You know, they've been doing 5k assessments for the last 3 years, and all of a sudden they're like, oh, awesome. I got like, the stride power pod. Like, could we implement using power as well? Like, yep, fantastic. Like, let's clip that onto your shoe for your next 5K. And now from that 5K assessment, we can look at, you know, what is the functional threshold heart rate? What was the pace? Let's find out what your threshold pace was. And then we can also correlate that to what is your functional threshold power from that 5k assessment. So any assessment that the athlete would take typically do. We can just add power as that additional metric to it. I mean, there's some, you know, different protocols depending on the, like, foot pod that you buy. They have some recommendations to help you kind of zero that in if it's your first time, like, doing an assessment. But for a lot of athletes, they can just add power as that additional metric to the assessments that they've consistently been doing for the last few years, which is great. So very, very easy to implement. And yeah, just like you would have heart rate zones, just like you would have pace zones, now you've got your power zones as well.

Carrie Tollefson: Oh, my goodness, so many numbers. It's so cool, though. I mean, once you. Once you get the hang of it, I'm sure it's just like another thing, you know, like watching your sleep and, you know, all this, you know, used to be calories, which some people still want to count their calories. A lot of us don't do that. But, I mean, there's all these great numbers to, to follow. So when you, when you do go do a RunDot workout, right, like when we're in our RunDot app, how does it tell you what metric? Like, does the coach tell us that? Does the workout tell us? Like, today we're going to focus on power, or today is on pace, or it's all heart rate today. Like, how does it tell us as athletes? And maybe, you know, some of us don't have personal coaches. We're just using the app. Like, how can you explain that?

Elizabeth James: Yes, the app makes it so easy. I. I love this. And there's just little icons there. I don't know why, but they just make me smile. They make me so happy. They're just so cute. I'm like, oh, it tells Me exactly what to do.

Carrie Tollefson: You get more fuzzies from the app.

Elizabeth James: Right? Exactly. It's just like, ah. And. And maybe it's because we're starting with, like, the little heart icon. So, yeah, if you. If you pull up your workout and there's a little heart icon next to it, like follow heart rate. Makes sense. Yeah. If you pull workout and there's a little clock icon, then we're following pace. And so that. That just makes it so easy for somebody using RunDot. They pull it up and just depending on what little icon is there next to the workout, you know, all right, heart, follow heart rate. Clock, follow pace. If you have a device that's connected and it records pace power and you're supposed to use power for that session, then there's going to be a nice little lightning bolt. So, you know, if you don't have power, no big deal. It's just going to show you the heart or the clock. If you do have power and that's the metric you're supposed to use, then, then look for the little lightning bolt. So, yeah, it's like little emojis in. In the app, and it just tells you what to do.

Carrie Tollefson: So some people use RunDot alongside their Strava because, like, for me, I used to only write down everything that I did, did, and now I like to have Strava because it is kind of like my training log, but it also gives me that map of, you know, elevation, and I know that red dot. All that does all that too. But do you find that a lot of people use both?

Elizabeth James: I. I do. Most of the time they have their RunDot workout just pushed to Strava.

Carrie Tollefson: And that's just because it's like their training log.

Elizabeth James: Yes. And honestly, I find it's even. Even more for the social component that it's just like, hey, what did my friends do? You know, what did. What did I do? They're just used to using Strava. Yeah. And so I. Yeah, it's just the social part of it, but it. I mean, it pushes right to it. So if you're used to using Strava, if you love getting those kudos, if you love titling them fun things and putting a little joke on there, like, fantastic. You still got that option.

Carrie Tollefson: Okay, good. I love it. So I want to know when and why we'll run that. Give us a session that is good based on heart rate. Like, why does it all sudden just spit that out?

Elizabeth James: Yes. Yeah. So if you see that little heart icon, the goal of it is to like develop specific aerobic or cardiovascular adaptations and those are going to be best done or like best achieved by training at a defined heart rate range. And so a couple examples of this. Like if you've got an aerobic workout, I mean this is sometimes known as like your zone two runs. And this has a specific heart rate target because we want to make sure that we're keeping the effort like easy to moderate, making sure that we're staying in the aerobic zone because we want that efficient fat burning, we want the cardiovascular improvements that can really only happen when we're staying aerobic. Another example is like a recovery workout. Like recovery workouts will often use heart rate targets just to make sure that we're keeping the effort light. Because again like the heart rate is just that physiological response. Like how is the body responding to this workout? If we're really fatigued, if we had just raced like our heart rate might be a little bit elevated, our resting heart rate might be up. And so if we go out and we do this workout, like we don't want to necessarily be like oh, I always run an eight minute mile, like I'm gonna run eight minute pace. Well if you're super fatigued or if you just race like an eight minute mile might be too hard. So we really need to go by heart rate and see how is the body responding to this. Maybe I need to ease back a little bit more. Maybe today, you know, that's closer to an 8:45. Cuz I just raced or I just had a super hard like track session the day before. And so using heart rate as a metric there really just makes sure that we keep, keep that in the aerobic zone and we get those physiological like responses from the body that we want.

Carrie Tollefson: Yeah. And I think it's important for people to understand we don't just throw our heart rate monitor on for those hard days. Like there's a really good, I mean I would have to say a lot of coaches are more so putting that on their athletes for their recovery days to make sure they aren't going too hard.

Elizabeth James: Yeah, 100%. I mean as, as a coach, that's one of the things I would say like I'm even more so looking at your heart rate on those recovery days, on the aerobic days. Like certainly we're looking at it for, you know, the intensity and looking for the heart rate, decoupling and everything. But yeah, like keep those easy days easy. And the main way that we can make sure that it's easy enough is by looking at the body's response in the heart rate reading.

Carrie Tollefson: So I want to talk a little bit about not only looking at numbers, which is such a good thing to do really, because it's an easy metric. Like, I don't know how many times I'm going to tell this story, but I'm going to tell it every time that I think about it because it's just crazy. I was doing a, supposed to do a threshold workout one day, a 20 minute tempo or something like that, and I was 10 minutes in and I was like, what the heck is going on? Like, my heart rate was super high. But I was easily able to talk to my coach at the time and like, I don't know what's going on. I just, I can't, I can't run the pace that you want me to run today. Like without going up to almost max. Right. And then 12 hours later I was vomiting like I had the stomach flu. And I, I didn't know I was sick yet. You know, I, I felt okay. I just could tell in my heart rate in the workout that my body was working way harder or at least my heart rate was higher than. Yeah, like I could, I couldn't slow the heart rate, but I couldn't also run. Like, it was just so crazy. So it's such a good thing to really like know. And obviously there's going to be times where you're going to get ticked off and you're going to throw the heart rate monitor off and be like, screw it, I'm just going to do the workout by perceived effort. Right. Like I'm just going to go and do whatever on. But we don't want you to do that every single time. Like it is such a good metric to have.

Elizabeth James: Yes, absolutely. And I mean your story is a great example. Like the body will tell us what's going on. It's just like, are we listening and, and will we listen? Will we adhere to what it's saying?

Carrie Tollefson: Yeah, it takes time sometimes to fully trust it. I think that's the big thing. I remember Sonia Sullivan, who won Olympic silver medal, Olympic silver medal in Sydney and she went to Villanova and she came and did five by a K. I think she did eight by a K. We were to hold on for five of them with her and she was doing them at threshold pace and we were doing them at like race based effort. It was so crazy. But I remember her getting so super ticked. But then at the, at her heart rate because it was, she was supposed to be going easy but yet she was getting kind of into it. Right. And she wanted to go harder. And for an Olympic silver medalist to be kind of mad at her heart rate too was good for US Athletes to be like, even they get frustrated with some days of being able to say, I have to slow so I hit the right range. I can't just hammer through every single workout. There's a time and place and I do, I do want to hear your explanation of why we don't always use the heart rate monitor. Like when you go to the track sometimes and you're doing 400 meter repeats and you're getting ready for a 5K, there's certain times where we, we do want to just go out and push hard or run that certain pace and let the heart rate just be where.

Elizabeth James: It's going to be. Yeah. And just as much as we want to look at it like there's, there's a time and place to do it. And as we talked about like on the RunDot workouts, there are some of them that have the clock. Like we are going by pace this time. Like we will let the heart rate be what it's going to be and we'll use that information as a secondary metric. Like if you're working with a coach, they're going to look at what the heart rate was during those intervals, but they don't want you to use that as what to follow. Like they're asking you to, to do this based off intensity, to do it based off pace. And I mean, part of the reason for that is that while heart rate is excellent for managing like steady state and aerobic efforts, it's really not ideal for those high intensity workouts, you know, like those four hundreds at the track and where we want, you know, to look at those 400 meter repeats or whatever, you know, the high intensity workout is. We want that kind of immediate and precise feedback. And we talked a little bit earlier about, you know, how there is a little bit of a hard heart rate lag and that's, that's a lagging indicator that's not going to be as much real time. And because the heart rate takes a little bit to catch up when you, you know, suddenly increase your intensity, you know, for short, intense intervals or like sprints. I mean, goodness, if you're doing like 100 meter sprints, it's kind of the same thing as running up the hill. Like you're not going to be looking at what your heart rate is for that because by the time you're done, then maybe your heart rate Is, is going to respond in, in that correct zone. So yeah, those are, those are places where because of the lagging indicator, we want to look at things that are real time. And that would be like pace or power.

Carrie Tollefson: When we're talking about pace, that's a hard thing. You know, like, even when I was racing at a world class level and there were times where I'm like, I want to try to run the American record, I never got it, but I was, you know, I was gunning for it. Right. Um, and so a lot of our workouts were based off of that pace. Like, how do you tell athletes now, you know, when they're like, I want to, I want to run really fast, maybe they have no idea what kind of pace or what kind of race time they can try to achieve. How do you guys, as athlete and coach and within RunDot like, figure out what kind of pace actually run those workouts at?

Elizabeth James: Yeah, so the assessments are key piece here because from the assessments we can look at specifically tailoring the zones that are appropriate for the athlete and then basing workouts off of, you know, looking to maximize their threshold. Some of the, some of the workouts, though, are fantastic. I mean, like the mav shuttles workout where it's like, hey, go all out and sprint. I mean, that, that's a great workout, but it's also a great, like, reflection piece as an athlete and as a coach to be like, all right, what was that top end speed? And I mean, sometimes the athletes surprise you and they're like killing it on those, like, quick sprints. And you're like, all right, dang. Like, we, we can, we can push a little harder on some of these threshold intervals. Like, you, you said that, you know, those were feeling all right. And you've got a maximum speed here that's crazy fast. Like, we can, we can work with this. So I, I love that too because on some of the workouts it does, it kind of just opens the door and tells the athlete like, go, run hard. Like, yeah, sprint. This section here, let's, let's see what the pace is. And, and that's where like, as fantastic as all of these metrics are, it's still great to think about our perceived effort. And using perceived effort as a guide is fantastic because it really is like, okay, go run fast, go run hard. Go sprint. And then let's look at what those values ended up being. And so there's. This is one of those things that it's like, as awesome as technology is, like, we still want to be in tune with our body. Like, how did that feel? I think maybe my athletes get a little frustrated with that question because, I mean, they get done with a session, you know, data file looks fantastic. I'm like, and how did you feel? And they roll their eyes because they're like, oh, we knew you were going to ask that again. And it's like, okay, but let's. Let's think about perceived effort. Like, if. If your watch goes crazy on race day, like, how are you going to feel? How are you going to monitor that effort? Like, this is still an important part to be in tune with our bodies. So, yeah, there's. There's a time and a place for all the technology, but there's also the time and a place to put that aside and, hey, go, sprint hard. And then how did you feel?

Carrie Tollefson: I think that's really important to talk about the RPEs, right? Right. A preserved effort. I think, you know, when you're doing a threshold workout, that short answer, pace is key. I mean, you should be able to talk to your coach or your training partner in a very short sentence or, you know, be able to respond in a short way. You know, intervals. At VO2 max, you shouldn't really be able to talk much besides, you know, stop talking to me.

Elizabeth James: Maybe I grunt here and there. How you doing exactly?

Carrie Tollefson: Thumbs up.

Elizabeth James: Yeah, right.

Carrie Tollefson: Or, you know, no, I gotta cut all those things. But I do think that's important. And it sounds like you, as a coach and athlete, really believe in that, too. RPE, like, it's not something we should just do away with because we have all this technology.

Elizabeth James: Yes, absolutely. It's. It's still so important for athletes to really monitor how they're feeling during it and get a sense, like, what does easy feel like? What does it feel like to run a threshold? You know, how. How hard is it when you sprint and you're at VO2 max?

Carrie Tollefson: Okay. So I'm a big believer in this, you know, in pace, in heart rate. But I'm. You're starting to get me on this power thing. And you really, really think that all of us should be in tune with that as well?

Elizabeth James: Well, I. I love it. It's. It's something that I would say, you know, it comes after the. The pace and the heart rate for a lot of athletes. Can you train without it? 100%. I mean, of the athletes I coach, I would say maybe 30% of them are using power. And it really depends on, like, is that appropriate for them? I mean, for the athlete I coached where she had no flat terrain a hundred percent. We needed to use power for a couple of the other athletes that I coach in the Dallas area that can do their workouts on basically a good, repeatable flat section. Not so much like they've talked about incorporating power and we could. But unless they're going to start adding like a whole bunch of varied terrain, or they're looking at that for a race that's going to have a bunch of varied terrain or a bunch of some environmental factors, that'll be a big influence. It's not their best investment. There's other things that they can invest in for their training that are probably going to give them, like, a little bit more benefit.

Carrie Tollefson: Okay. As we get, you know, close to wrapping this up a little bit, I want to know on race day, what are you looking at? Are you looking at pace? Are you looking at heart rate or are you looking at power? All three. None of them. Just balls to the wall. Let's go. What is it?

Elizabeth James: Oh, yeah, great question. On, I'd say on race day, like, choosing whether an athlete is going to run by heart rate or, you know, pace or power kind of depends on the race distance, the conditions, and then a little bit on, like, their, their personal preferences as well. But whatever you're doing on race day, like, we need to have practiced that in training. And, and that's kind of a key thing here. Like, if you are, you know, going by pace, then you don't want to all of a sudden be looking at a power number. And same thing like, you know, if you have always been training by pace, you don't want to just all of a sudden look at your heart rate on. On race day. Um, so you need to have a good understanding of what metric it is that you're going to use for those races for, for longer races where, like, managing your effort over time and like, conserving energy is key. Heart rate can be a great indicator. I coach an ultra runner, and we look at heart rate a lot for his training on those long days, and we look at it a lot for those races as well. Because if he's out there for 100 miles and he's burning matches and spiking his heart rate like crazy, like there's not a lot of opportunity to come back from that. And he's got a long walk to the finish line. Um, now, you know, if we're looking at something like a shorter distance event, you know, somebody that's racing like a 5k or a 10k pace, absolutely. Like, we're looking at pace for that. Um, you can use heart rate maybe as a secondary metric, but oftentimes for those shorter distance events, this is kind of the most intuitive. It's the simplest to use on race day, especially if it's like a flat course. Um, now, again, you know, if we're climbing a mountain for a 5k, like, then we might want to look at something different. But, yeah, I, I think most of the athletes that I coach are using pace as the primary metric on race day. Um, but if it's something longer, you know, maybe somebody that's doing their first marathon or. Again, we're getting into those ultra distances. Heart rate can be a really helpful metric just to make sure that we have an, an appropriate energy expenditure and physiological response for that longer day.

Carrie Tollefson: I just keep thinking that eventually Rondot's.

Elizabeth James: Going to be able to let you.

Carrie Tollefson: Follow your athletes and like, every, like, in real time. And then, like, I keep thinking, okay, in the Chicago Marathon, is Coach Elizabeth going to be, you know, in my ear saying, like, okay, forget that split now. You know, your heart rate's low. We got to start pushing it. Like, I just, I keep thinking of all the new ways that this, you know, our, our training and our racing is going to go, because that has to be like, next, right? We have to be able to interact somehow. Even already.

Elizabeth James: I mean, it's kind of like the Tour de France, you know, with their earphones or the NASCAR drivers.

Carrie Tollefson: Although, I don't know the run scene.

Elizabeth James: I'm trying to decide for athletes would like that or not. I know, like, would you like me in your ear or would they be like.

Carrie Tollefson: Well, I used to tell my dad, like, throw a rock at me and wake me up mid race, because you know how you, like in this 5k especially, you kind of like, forget that you're racing and then all of a sudden you're like, oh, no, there's 800 meters. So maybe it would be fun to have someone in my ear being like, wake up. Like, you gotta get going. Wow.

Elizabeth James: You can push a little harder.

Carrie Tollefson: Exactly. You're way low. Come on. Well, this has been great. I can see how people love having you coach them, Elizabeth. But I'm so excited to now watch you. When you get ready to race, what are you. When are you racing next?

Elizabeth James: So I'm done for this season. Okay. And. And I laugh because they just announced that Dallas Little Elm is a pro race for the 70.3. There's a new 70.3. It's in it's in Dallas, but it's in March. And I was, this is terrible. But I was honestly kind of hoping it wasn't a pro race because the water is going to be so cold and I'm a baby for cold water. And so at one point I was like, well, cool. If it's not a pro race, then I'm just like, oh, bummer, couldn't race that one. I'll just coach. And also they announced it was a pro race. I'm like, gosh, the logistics of that are easy, but I am such a baby for the cold water. And if it's under 60 and it totally will be, it's going to be like high 50s for the water temp. I'm like. So I have to either wrap my brain around swimming in the cold water, Little Elm, or, or I'll wait till, like, May to race when, you know, water temperatures are, are much more manageable. So I'm not sure yet.

Carrie Tollefson: Sounds like we, we need to get you a pool sponsor so you can, you know, turn the heat, the heat down on that water and get used to it.

Elizabeth James: There we go. There we go. Yeah, just. Oh, we're. We'll see what happens.

Carrie Tollefson: Okay, well, keep us posted. All right. But we have one more question. It's the cool down question, which I think are so fun.

Elizabeth James: They're.

Carrie Tollefson: These are great. And this one's coming from Tyler, Texas. How close is that to you? Do you know?

Elizabeth James: Oh, gosh, geography questions. It's hard enough that I don't know exactly. I. I feel like it's a couple hours. I'm terrible at geography, so, I mean, this is huge. I have no idea.

Carrie Tollefson: Come on, Gina. We're giving you a shout out from Tyler, Texas, and sounds like we need Elizabeth to make a trip around Texas to see where you're at. But she wants to know, do you get more benefits running early when it's cooler and less sun but more humidity, or would you rather wait until later when it's warmer and more sun but less humidity?

Elizabeth James: I love this question. This is quite the debate of, like, oh, in the early morning, yeah, it's cooler, but the humidity is just brutal. So let's see. Gina, I would say if your main goal is to kind of maximize the training quality, like with less heat stress, then the earlier run, that's going to be better despite the high humidity. Now, if you are gearing up for a race where you're going to be racing in warm conditions and you're working on that heat adaptation, you need your body to adapt to the hot, sunny conditions, then that later run is going to help in that adaptation process. So I would still lean toward the less heat stress in the morning, facing the high humidity. But here's the good news. The best news, like RunDot utilizes environment normalization, so you're going to get the right training adaptation and the precise zones no matter when you choose to run. So, yeah, you know, for anybody that's debating that, the good news is whatever you choose, like RunDot is going to make sure that your zones are optimized and. And you're going to get the right training response either way.

Carrie Tollefson: Yeah. Again, sometimes you just have to trust that training and. And go for it. I mean, they talk about humidity being the poor man's altitude.

Elizabeth James: Right.

Carrie Tollefson: Like, there's benefits from it, but you do have to adjust. Like your heart rate goes up in humidity and it doesn't want to fall because of the, you know, the body can't cool itself. So lots of cool things. Great information. Thank you so much for your time today, Elizabeth. And we are.

Elizabeth James: This was so fun.

Carrie Tollefson: It was. We'll have you back, right?

Elizabeth James: Well, if you'll have me back, I'll definitely come. I enjoyed it. Yay.

Carrie Tollefson: Well, thanks so much and keep getting after it.

Closing

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