New Year New NURVV Training Guide: Week 5

Week 5: Increasing the intensity and upping the pace

This week we’re looking at how your heart rate changes as you run, and how you can use heart rate zones to train smarter and hit your goals.

You’ll also learn more about NURVV Run’s Pace Coach feature and how it can guide you to achieve a target pace.

Week 5 training

This week you’re going to complete two runs. Ideally, you’ll run both runs with a heart rate monitor. NURVV Run is compatible with most bluetooth-enabled chest-strap heart rate monitors. You can also use a wrist-based monitor, such as a running watch.

Run 1: The heart rate run

The purpose of this run is to see how your heart rate changes over the course of the run, so make sure your heart rate monitor is connected to NURVV Run before you set off!

You can choose to run a longer run to see how your heart rate changes as you fatigue, or an intense session, such as an interval run, to see how it fluctuates with effort. You can run indoors or outdoors.

What to look out for:

Throughout your run, keep an eye on your heart rate using NURVV’s app or your watch. If you are using headphones, the NURVV app will tell you when you change between Heart Rate training zones in real-time. Check the following:

• How does your heart rate change during the run? Is it increasing steadily, or do you experience significant jumps in your heart rate values?
• How quickly do you move through different heart rate zones? Do you tend to spend more time in the lower zones (1, 2 and 3) or higher zones (4 and 5)?
• Check out the Heart Rate Report after your run, what was your most common Heart Rate zone (pay attention to the doughnut graph)?
• How did your Heart Rate values change with pace? Is there a direct relationship between an increase in pace and your Heart Rate (you can tell this by analysing the line graph in Form Report)?

Once you’ve collected your heart rate data, check out our guide to heart rate training to help you interpret it. You’ll learn how to use heart rate metrics to inform your training and the heart rate zones you should be aiming for to get the most out of every run, whether you’re looking to increase endurance, boost speed or take some time to recover after an intense session.

Run 2: The Pace Coach run

For your second run, you’re going to be using NURVV’s Pace Coach feature. A Pace Coach workout is designed to help you improve your running pace by optimising cadence and step length. During your run you’ll get audio and visual coaching cues, telling you when you need to alter your cadence or step length to hit your target pace.

As a baseline for this workout, you’ll be asked to choose an indoor or outdoor run you’ve previously completed using NURVV Run. It’s best to start with a relatively easy and short run so you can really get to understand how Pace Coach works and make the most of the in-run coaching.

Pace Coach will ask you to set a target pace, increase your speed by a small, achievable amount to start with. You can always go harder next time!

What to look out for:

• Are you setting a realistic Target Score or are you aiming too high?
  Pay attention to the estimated performance data Pace Coach provides to give you the best chance of meeting your targets during the workout and improving your pace.
• Listen to the audio cues to keep your cadence and step length in the appropriate ranges throughout the workout.
• Which metrics (cadence or step length) do you find easier to control in-run?
• How does a change in cadence affect your step length? Can you change one without changing the other?

Take a look at your cadence and step length metrics, too. If you struggled to up your cadence or alter your step length, the exercise plans below will help you work on improving your form.

Targeted exercise plans to build strength and improve your running form

Exercise plans to improve your cadence

Beginner

Advanced

Exercise plans to improve your step length

Beginner

Advanced

Next week: we’ll be looking at your running health. Look out for week 6 in your inbox soon.