First report from sweet spot

It’s working!

I was not expecting to write an update about my sweet spot training yet, but I have already noticed a form improvement after just two sweet spot sessions! My resting heart rate is down by 2-3 beats, my zone 1 speed has increased, and my uphill intervals feel like they did about a year ago. OK, perhaps an improvement was due now regardless of the new schedule, but at least focusing on the correct heart rate has made me aware of a few mistakes I have been making for the last couple of months.

When I checked my training log on my sports watch, I saw that I have been mainly running in my zone 4 or 5 (during competitions and speed training), or in my zone 1 or 2. Zone 1 is of course very recommended every now and then for active recovery and for a flush of human growth hormone. But I’m afraid zone 2 training is pretty useless. On the other hand, as we saw on the charts of last week, zone 5 training is as useless for form improvement as zone 2, so in that sense zone 2 is better because then at least you are not wearing out your body. Sweet spot, however, is somewhere between zone 3 and zone 4.

Getting the heart rate up to sweet spot at the beginning of a training session is hard work. Especially when I have had to do my running in the early mornings most of the time during the last 6 weeks, before my body is fully awake and before breakfast… Although I spend at least a couple of kilometers to warm up and increase speed, until I’m up at 154 bpm, it feels really tough and like I am pushing it too hard. The clue is to not rush it and just take the time to get there. Once I’m there, though, it is surprisingly easy to stay there. As kilometers pass by and I start to get tired, my speed decreases a bit so in a sense it gets easier and easier to stay at 154 bmp. Afterwards restitution is quick and I feel not at all tired during the rest of the day.

It is crucial of course to not overdo it. Since it is not that tiring, and the effect seems so good, it is tempting to do all my runs in sweet spot. But that would definitely lead to over training. I am so far keeping my sweet spot sessions short; about 6 km, in addition to warm up and cool down. I plan to slowly increase mileage there, but stick to my plan of not more than 2 sweet spot sessions a week. Supply these with a couple of interval sessions and some long slow runs, and let's see if it will get me somewhere new.

Train smart, have fun!