The Unimportance of Speed

It’s great to be training down in Clermont Florida, where it has been 75 and sunny every day. A huge impetus for taking this trip [amongst many other things] was to create an opportunity to ride my new time-trial bike outdoors before Duathlon Nationals and the May races [in Michigan] that I have on my calendar. For those of you who may be unfamiliar, to make a long story short, a “time-trial” bike has a much more aggressive geometry/fit than a road bike, and as a result, it handles much differently [e.g., one has a lot less control on a TT bike vs. a road bike, but also the potential to go much faster].

My first hard training session of the trip involved a 1:20 bike ride that included speed sets, or 2x10 minutes of best-sustainable-effort [2 episodes of near all-out riding with 3 minutes rest in between], followed by a 30 minute transition run; the first mile at a tempo effort, everything else relaxed thereafter. I averaged around 24mph for the bike speed sets, and then ran a 5:55 first mile off the bike. For me this is incredibly fast -- by far the fastest I have ever been. I wasn’t sure if it was the new bike, the improved legs [payoff from seemingly endless winter hours on the trainer] or some combination of the two. In any event, I was stoked, and excited to report the results to my coach. His response went something like this: “Don’t matter Brad, I just want to know where your heart-rate was at.”

After giving him my heart-rate data [which was also quite good, as my legs were able to sustain an extremely high heart-rate during the intense parts of the workout], I pushed a bit harder on his whole “non-reaction” to the enormous speed gains from any workout that I did last year. I got nothing from my coach but a reminder that I did the workout on flat terrain [plus for speed], in wind conditions that will never be exactly the same again [who-knows for speed], and only two days after running a 10K at race-effort [minus for speed].

Taken together, speed tells us very little to nothing, and is an awful proxy for judging workouts. Too many factors outside of one’s effort and current fitness impact and determine speed. It’s actually an extremely long list, but the best and most clear examples of some confounding variables are:

1) Wind condition
2) Course profile/grade and
3) What you did in the days leading up to the workout [e.g., are you well-rested].

To really drive the point home: it’s much better to go 23mph on a windy day over rolling terrain after doing a hard workout two days prior than it is to go 26mph with the wind at your back on a flat course after a week of easy training. Although the speed feedback implies that the second workout was much better, odds are, our hypothetical athlete was probably pushing his/her body harder in the first example. And if training sessions are judged by the physiological and mental adaptations that they foster, than the first workout was superior and the one to be celebrated.

This is true of biking and running, and I’m sure in many other sports too. This is also why almost all coaches and training programs use heart-rate, power, perceived exertion, or pace bands [forgiving pace ranges] to guide workouts, and why how you feel after a workout [are you sore and beat after a hard effort...or refreshed after a recovery workout] is more important than the speed on your Garmin. This is also extremely counter-intuitive, and a hard chasm for data-driven, improvement oriented, speed junkies to cross. But, once crossed, you’ll be more likely to choose more challenging terrain for your workouts and get more out of them, and you'll be less likely to stress over a number that really is rather arbitrary and I’d say anywhere from 20-30% out of your control depending on the day (unless you can control the wind and things like that).

Small caveat here, there are some times when speed is extremely important. For instance, if you are trying to qualify for the Boston Marathon or some other race that uses speed as a standard [pick a flat course, hope for no wind, and taper properly], or, if you are doing indoor training on the same course under the same rest conditions [e.g., weekly 400 repeats inside after two easy days] then speed matters and can be useful as training data. But more generally, the best way to monitor performance during training and racing is based on indicators of exertion [and for competitive athletes, did you go faster than the guy/gal in front of you in races]. This doesn't mean one needs to invest in all kinds of heart-rate and power technology [though it helps]. The best way to judge an effort is how your legs feel during it and the morning after. It takes some getting used to, but I guarantee that over time, you’ll be shocked at what outstanding data you gather simply from how your body responds to training.

Until next time, train hard and live hard!