Me and My Maf Zone

Be re-assured!

It's not easy but, in the long term, the rewards are considerable. Having spent most of this summer running at my MAF HR (or less) I am now finding that, with cooler and drier weather, my pace is significantly faster at the same HR than it was in the Spring.

I've not done any of the diet stuff - there are limits!

 

+1 Chris! Starting out, some effort, but later on "rewards considerable" !

 

everything worth doing is hard, but only at first. practice will bring mastery.

 

MAF works best if you're doing high volume, so lots of time at that easy intensity. For me, hour-long MAF runs are a minimum and double that works much better. Some days, it feels easier than others. It depends on lots of factors, temperature being a big one. Now that we're getting some cool weather, MAF takes more effort to maintain than it does in the heat. I also do better with some higher intensity in my routine, maybe every ten days or so I do some hill intervals or a fartlek. That may be an age thing, though, I'm also in my late 50s and maintaining strength is a lot harder than it used to be.

 

Between four and five years.

 

So I got curious about MAF. Strapped on my HR strap after dusting it off and went for a run. Calculated my HR for a fit 62 year old at 118+5=123. Set my alarm on my iphone and away I went. Went 2 miles and when I checked the stats I found I averaged a HR of 131. And that was with a lot of walk breaks when my phone alerted me that I was out of the zone. My pace was 12:30 per mile, the same run a month earlier was ran with a heart rate of 141 and a pace of 10:00 min per mile pace. As a more senior runner I find it's next to impossible to get my heart rate as low as what the MAF rate should be. I think I could go out my MAF zone just by going to the bathroom and doing a #2. I think more of a age adjustment should be made for those of us who are entering our later years, especially those of us who have been running for the last 40 years. This is just my take on MAF.

 

This is just my personal opinion but I was so close of getting an HR monitor then snapped back into reality. I just can't run slow all the time, and I like doing hill work and running hard at times as well. I have ran 20+ years without a HR monitor why start now. I do have a garmin and that's about as far as I will go with technology and running. I had a recent physical and my sitting Heart rate as 53 BPM, i'm doing something right

 

I must confess to cheating a little with MAF HR runs as I use AHR not MHR as my guide.
That said I am 60 and work on 125 as my MAF rate. My recent runs have all been with self-imposed targets of 120/125 for AHR and my MHR has never exceeded 138.

Last night was warm, about 30C and humid, yet I managed an 8.20 pace on my 7 mile run home at an AHR of 122. That morning my 5 mile run was not an attempt at MAF pacing and I had a 7.30 pace and an AHR of 131 at about 20C with low humidity.
In the heat and humidity of the last couple of months my pace was around 8.45 - 9.15 with an AHR between 120 and 125 throughout.
I am looking forward to cooler and drier Fall days to see what pace I can maintain at 125 AHR.

I'll still be "gi'ing it laldy" on some runs but not so often that I feel beaten up the next morning.

My adaptation of MAF HR undoubtedly is working for me - but it does need time for the benefits to show!

 

I've read on some other websites when using the MAF training that you do not need to subtract your years above 55 ...that's just some runners opinion of course and not part of the original Maff formula.

I do MAF training most of the time unless i'm prepping for a race which is seldom...if I'm out of shape I'm usually around 2 minutes per mile slower at MAF pace than when i'm in good shape. Usually it takes me at least 2 months of Maff training to get back to some better fitness.

 

Agree. The MAF formula was developed with young athletes and it declines faster than the max HR curve for athletes who continue training, so it seems likely to start falling apart for older people. The adjustment you can optionally make at age 65 is an indicator of this. Why should my MAF HR be 116 when I'm 64 and 125 a day later when I turn 65? Not logical. When I'm fit, running at MAF is fast enough to be fun and enough effort to be a workout, so I stick with it. I'm also planning to leave my strict MAF rate at 125 for the next 9 years ... we'll see how well that works.

 

I think I'll run MAF this winter and try to keep my HR @ 130 bpm and see how I make out with that.

 

Hello all,
Two years ago my Maf rate was 130 - and still I've got problems to keep beneath this magical number during my outdoor runs - I couldn't even dream about going down to 128 as I should: All roads seem to lead uphill as soon as I step out of my door, which often means that I have to walk as a warm up to keep my heart rate down. And whenever the monitor shows 125 I need to stop "running" (or whatever you would like to call my slow locomotion) immediately or else the monitor will jump to 140 in the next three seconds. And still my average hear rate is usually around 135... I'm sure there is a problem with my Garmin!

 

Pot.
Kettle.
Black!

 

Ha! Good one Chris, I actually saw that one coming. But note: my number-crunching comes before and after a workout, in the service of rendering the actual ST workout and its inherent numerology as mindless as possible, in order to recreate the blissful, data-free 'zone' of aerobic training. Whereas you HR cats are doing the opposite.

In any case, follow your bliss! Whatever keeps you coming back for more is the way to go!

 

Yeah, it's pretty rough, setting the limits on the HRM and then forgetting about anything but running ... somehow I manage.