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VO2 for trail running on or off?

Au Thon
over 3 years ago

Hi everyone, since the 15.20 update my VO2 max dropped 5 ml. I thought the new trail running support was supposed to help with the underreporting of vo2 max due to the increased effort it takes to run on trails. My experience has been the opposite. Also, my recovery time is longer than before. I don´t know if the problem lies in the gps tracking, in the hr monitor or in the softwere in general. For now I have the vo2 for trail run on. Any clues?

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    Recovery time will increase for the same distance with a lower VO2Max - just a symptom of the same underlying issue.

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    I suspect that trail running VO2max is inaccurate due to very inaccurate pace measurements, especially in the first mile.

    What I observed from a couple of runs on real trail (wavy singletrack, dense tree cover) is that performance drops sharply in the very beginning, towards the end of the first mile, then it mostly recovers. Coincidentally the pace is really off at the same time, then it improves by the end of the first time. 

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to silentvoyager

    Ok, so I went for a 5k run this morning. VO2 tracking on, changed from GPS+Galileo to GPS+Glonass, started the activity after a very technical steep ascent so that the first km would be smoother, used a HRM-pro, fully rested, recovered and hidratad. 

    The result, 4.0 aerobic, 3.1 anaerobic benefit, increased 2 bpm in max hr, Impact on VO2 and.....

    My Vo2 dropped to 45 ml/kg/min! 39 hours recovery time. It just makes no sense to me. That´s lower than when I first started running.

    Guess I´m turning it OFF.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Au Thon

    3.1 anaerobic benefit is very high. That points to your HR being incorrect you perhaps your HR zones not being setup correctly.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to silentvoyager

    I am 39 and this is how the watch configured my HR zones. It should be 181 bpm with the traditional formula. The watch increased it after todays run to 184. What do you think about the zones?

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Au Thon

    These zones look skewed towards low HR too much. I am 11 years older than you, and my zone 4 still starts higher at 153. You zone 5 likely starts too low too - that's why you get very high anaerobic benefit. You shouldn't be able to run in zone 5 unless you are pushing really hard, like a race effort or running steep uphill. Your max HR is probably too low too. The fact that it got adjusted to 184 means that you hit 184 during your run. Did you really run at nearly max effort?

    One thing that I see is that you probably haven't entered rest HR, so your zones are based on percentage of the max HR, and that is what makes them skewed too low. That is OK for general fitness but inadequate for running. For running it is better to make them based on HR reserve, which requires rest HR. And even better method is to make zones based on lactate threshold (LTHR).

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Au Thon

    The traditional formula isn’t that reliable, many people have much higher max heart rates and a fair few much lower max heart rates than it suggests. Hill reps are the traditional way of working out what the real value is. It won’t hurt much Slight smile