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 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
McGregor, Stephen J.
The runner’s edge / Stephen J. McGregor, Matt Fitzgerald.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7360-8115-3 (soft cover)
ISBN-10: 0-7360-8115-1 (soft cover)
1. Running--Training. 2. Running--Physiological aspects. I.
Fitzgerald, Matt. II. Title.
GV1061.5.M345 2010
796.42--dc22
2009026622
ISBN-10: 0-7360-8115-1 (print) ISBN-10: 0-7360-8611-0 (Adobe PDF)
ISBN-13: 978-0-7360-8115-3 (print) ISBN-13: 978-0-7360-8611-0 (Adobe PDF)
Copyright © 2010 by Stephen J. McGregor and Matt Fitzgerald
All rights reserved. Except for use in a review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in any
form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
xerography, photocopying, and recording, and in any information storage and retrieval system, is
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To my mother, Patricia, who is always in my thoughts.
—Stephen McGregor
 Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction ix
Acronyms and Abbreviations xii

1 Gaining the Technological

Advantage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

2 Choosing the Right

Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

3 Managing Performance
for Optimal Results . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

4 Monitoring Training
for Pace-Perfect Workouts . . . . . . 53

5 Analyzing Data for Balanced

Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

iv
 6 Planning for More Productive
Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

7 Mastering Periodization
for Peak Performance . . . . . . . . 119

8 Building Training Plans

on Race Goals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

9 Developing In-Race
Strategies for Faster Times . . . . . 171

10 Using Technology for Triathlon

Success . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183

Appendix: Pace Zone Index Scores in Kilometers 201

References 204
Index 205
About the Authors 210

v
This page intentionally left blank.
Acknowledgments

W e would like to express our heartfelt gratitude to the following people

for their various contributions to this project: Hunter Allen, Kevin Beck,
Gale Bernhardt, Mike Busa, Andrew Coggan, Jeremy Duerksen, John Duke, Gear
Fisher, Nataki Fitzgerald, Joe Friel, Donavon Guyot, Corey Hart, Hal Higdon,
Brad Hudson, Asker Jeukendrup, Dean Karnazes, Linda Konner, Steven Law-
rence, Cynthia McEntire, Bobby McGee, Greg McMillan, Hannu Kinnunen,
Laurel Plotzke, Ian Ratz, Kevin Sullivan, Rachael Weese, and Roberto Veneziani.

vii
This page intentionally left blank.
Introduction
O ne of the virtues of the sport of running is how little equipment it requires.
Shoes, socks, shorts, and a top are the essentials. Among competitive run-
ners, a stopwatch has also been considered essential, because it allows runners to
quantitatively monitor and control their training in ways that ultimately enable
them to train more effectively and race faster.
The days of the stopwatch may be numbered, however. That’s because a new
type of device, commonly known as a speed and distance device, is now able to
do what a stopwatch does and much more. A speed and distance device such
as the Timex Ironman Triathlon Bodylink is able to measure not just elapsed
time but also distance covered, speed (or pace), and elevation change. Many
devices also have the capability of estimating calories burned and monitoring
heart rate. Other special features vary by brand. For example, Polar. speed and
distance devices can be used to estimate and track changes in VO2max, or
the maximum rate at which the body consumes oxygen during running—an
important indicator of running fitness. What’s more, the software applications
that come bundled with speed and distance devices, as well as those that are
purchased separately, allow runners to compile and analyze workout and race
data in all kinds of helpful ways.
You don’t have to be a supercompetitive runner or a gadget whiz to benefit
from these technologies. They have something to offer every runner who wants
to improve. In fact, thousands of runners of all abilities and levels of experience
have already used the tools described in these pages to build greater speed and
endurance. Few of these runners can be described as computer geeks. If you
can work a stopwatch, you can learn how to manage your performance with a
speed and distance device. And don’t worry: This process will not strip running
of its charming simplicity. In fact, it will allow you to run with an even greater
sense of freedom that comes from acquiring the knowledge to truly coach your-
self—with a little help from technology.
When the first modern speed and distance devices hit the market in 2002,
some running coaches and exercise scientists, including us, quickly realized
that they could be much more than just a better stopwatch. We saw that these
devices had the potential to revolutionize how runners manage their perfor-
mance. Essentially, the devices created the possibility for runners of all abilities
to digitally coach themselves and to do so as effectively as the top professional
coaches train their athletes.

ix
x Introduction

Over the past several years we have worked independently and collaboratively
to unleash the full potential of speed and distance devices. Stephen McGregor
has done so by developing new training concepts and software tools that run-
ners can use with a speed and distance device to monitor, analyze, and plan
their training in ways that are impossible with a mere stopwatch. For example,
a feature called normalized graded pace (NGP) or flat pace converts the actual
pace on a running route with elevation change to an equivalent pace for level
terrain so that runners can compare the challenge level of (and their performance
in) workouts performed in different environments. Matt Fitzgerald created a
tool called the pace zone index (PZI) that allows runners to easily score their
current fitness level and choose the appropriate pace at which to perform each
type of workout. Matt also created the first generation of training plains that
are downloadable onto a speed and distance device.
Most runners are still unaware that such tools exist; even fewer know how to
use them effectively. That’s why we wrote this book. The typical runner uses a
speed and distance device in more or less the same way drivers use the speed-
ometer and odometer: as a source of basic information that is used in real time
to stay within certain vaguely defined parameters. Only a fraction of runners
even bother to download workout and race data from the speed and distance
device to the computer. That’s unfortunate, because the real power of the tech-
nology really begins with this action. The performance management software
(as we call it) that works with a speed and distance device enables runners to
analyze their runs more accurately and far more in depthly than ever before.
As a runner, you can use this type of analysis to determine appropriate pace
targets for all of your workouts and refine these targets as your fitness changes.
You can also program workouts and even complete training plans based on your
personal target pace zones and upload them to your speed and distance device.
And this is only the beginning. As you collect run data over time, you can
use your software to determine your optimal long-term training load, identify
and address strengths and weaknesses in your running fitness, identify periods
of overreaching resulting in illness or overtraining, determine your optimal
balance of training intensities, identify periods of stagnation in your training,
ensure that your training is truly progressive, plan a taper, and define an optimal
weekly training regimen. In other words, by learning how to fully exploit the
power of your running technology you can achieve total digital performance
management of your running. Your confidence and skill as a self-coached runner
will reach a whole new level.
This book takes you through the whole process, from choosing a speed and
distance device to using it in races. We begin in chapter 1 by describing the uses
of speed and distance devices and heart-rate monitors (which may be purchased
separately but are integrated within many speed and distance units) and the
 Introduction xi

benefits of using them to their potential. In chapter 2 we present a comprehen-

sive buyer’s guide for speed and distance devices and performance manage-
ment software programs that help runners get more out of their technologies.
Chapters 3 through 6 describe the performance management system that we
created to help you get the most out of your speed and distance device and the
three steps of this system: monitor, analyze, and plan (or MAP). Chapters 7 to
9 will show you how to race with your speed and distance device and create
pace-based training plans. We also provide a selection of ready-made plans for
various types of runners. Chapter 10 presents specific advice for triathletes.
You’ll find guidelines on integrating swim, bike, and run training within a uni-
fied performance management system.
The workouts, examples, and scenarios presented in this text use a combina-
tion of metric and English measurements, such as meters, miles, 5K, 10K, half
marathon, and marathon. If you use metric as the standard unit of measurement
in all your training, know that all speed and distance devices feature metric
options. You can easily convert the English measurements in the text to metric.
A few metric conversions are included after imperial measurements in the text.
 Acronyms and
Abbreviations
ATL: acute training load
bpm: beats per minute
CTL: chronic training load
CV: critical velocity
DEXA: dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry
EPOC: excess postexercise oxygen consumption
FTP: functional threshold pace
GPS: global positioning system
GTC: Garmin Training Center
HRmax: maximum heart rate
IF: intensity factor
kpm: kilometers per hour
LT: lactate threshold
MAP: monitor, analyze, and plan
MLSSv: maximal lactate steady state velocity
mph: miles per hour
NGP: normalized graded pace
PZI: pace zone index
spm: strides per minute
TSB: training stress balance
TSS: training stress score

xii
 CHAPTER

1
Gaining the
Technological
Advantage

A run can be measured, or quantified, using two basic types of measure-

ment. Performance measurements—which we might also call external
measurements—put into numbers the work accomplished in a run. The two
most familiar performance measurements are distance and pace. When you
say something like “I ran 6 miles” or “I averaged 7 minutes per mile,” you are
speaking in terms of performance measurements. The other type of measure-
ment is physiological, or internal. Physiological measurements may be used to
quantify the effects of a run on the body—that is, how hard the body’s various
systems are working or how much stress they are being exposed to. Common
physiological measurements in running include blood lactate levels, rate of
oxygen consumption, and heart rate.
Both external and internal measurements are useful in planning and executing
training. For example, by tracking your split times for intervals performed in a
certain type of track workout, you can quantify improvements in performance as
you periodically repeat the workout. Or by working with a coach who provides
lactate testing, which involves giving tiny blood samples during a treadmill
workout of increasing intensity, you can quantify improvements in your body’s
ability to handle the stress of running at any given pace.
Recent technologies have given runners the ability to use performance and
physiological measurements more easily and effectively than in the past. Specifi-
cally, heart-rate monitors allow runners to monitor the contraction rate of the

1
2 The Runner’s Edge

heart—a commonly used indicator

of the overall physiological stress
of a run—in real time throughout
each run as well as during recov-
ery periods in runs and at rest.
Before the advent of modern heart-
rate monitor technologies, there
were no tools for physiological
measurements that runners could
use on their own. They had. to go to
university laboratories for VO2max
tests and other tests.
More recently, a new genera-
tion of speed and distance devices
© Daiju Kitamura/AFLO SPORT/Icon SMI

based on global positioning system

(GPS) and accelerometer technolo-
gies has given runners the ability
to make accurate and continuous
performance measurements in
every run. Previously, the best
we could do was go to the local
track and get split times at the
Dai Tamesue trains at Hosei University end of every lap or measure road
in Tokyo. Training devices can be used routes with a car odometer and
to quantify the work performed during make paint marks at every mile
training.
or kilometer.
Heart-rate monitors and speed and distance devices each have several specific
uses that help runners train more effectively. But the greatest benefits accrue
when runners integrate all of these individual uses within a cohesive system that
we call performance management. Chapter 3 presents an overview of the three-
step performance management system. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 provide concrete
guidelines for executing each of these three steps: monitoring, analyzing, and
planning. In this chapter, we focus on the specific uses of heart-rate monitors
and speed and distance devices. This is a general overview of the benefits of
running and racing with technology. The specific guidelines you will need in
order to realize these benefits are detailed in subsequent chapters.

Heart Rate 101

A Finnish company, Polar Electro, developed the first wireless heart-rate monitor
in 1977. This device used electrodes contained in a strap worn around the chest
to capture the spikes in electrical activity that occur each time the heart muscle
 Gaining the Technological Advantage 3

contracts. This captured information was then transmitted to a display watch

worn on the wrist, which provided a real-time readout of heart rate. Today’s
heart-rate monitors offer many more bells and whistles, but they still perform
their basic function of monitoring heart rate in the same way.
Heart-rate monitors became very popular among runners, cyclists, triathletes,
other endurance athletes, and even general exercisers after the late 1970s. The
rationale for their use was readily understood, especially by endurance ath-
letes. Runners, for example, are accustomed to targeting one or more specific
running intensities in workouts to stimulate a desired training effect—as each
running intensity triggers slightly different physiological adaptations. Heart
rate has a well-known positive correlation with exercise intensity. The more
rapidly and forcefully the working muscles contract during exercise, the more
rapidly the heart muscle must contract to provide enough oxygen to enable the
working muscles to continue working as hard as they are trying to work. When
consumer heart-rate monitors hit the market, runners immediately recognized
these devices as tools enabling them to aim at fairly precise numerical targets
in their efforts to perform each run at the correct physiological intensity for
the workout’s purpose, instead of just going by feel. For example, research has
shown that the working muscles metabolize fat as fuel at the highest rate at
an intensity that corresponds with 75 to 80 percent of maximum heart rate
in the average trained endurance athlete. A runner with a heart-rate monitor
can use this knowledge to control his or her pace to stay within this heart-rate
zone when performing long runs designed to increase fat-burning ability. This
physiological approach enhances endurance because fat is a far more abundant
muscle fuel source than the other major muscle fuel, carbohydrate. Fatigue in
prolonged efforts often occurs when the carbohydrate stores of the working
muscles are depleted. When fat-burning capacity is increased, the runner is
able to rely more on fat to fuel running and thereby spare carbohydrate and
delay the point of fatigue.
The runners who chose to use heart-rate monitors, their coaches, and exercise
scientists who conducted research with heart-rate monitors quickly developed a
set of standard uses for the devices. Over the past 20 years or so, these standard
uses have evolved slightly to account for certain limitations of heart-rate moni-
toring as a tool for physiological measurement. And most recently, the advent of
speed and distance devices has provided runners with new uses for heart-rate
monitoring in its rightful role as an adjunct to pace monitoring.

Four Uses of a Heart-Rate Monitor

Heart-rate monitors have four main uses. Use the device to maintain target heart
rates in workouts, track changes in fitness, monitor your recovery status, and
quantify the stress of individual workouts.
4 The Runner’s Edge

Maintain Target Heart Rates in Workouts

By far the most common use for heart-rate monitors is to facilitate training at
the appropriate intensity in workouts. If you know the heart-rate range that is
associated with the specific training stimulus you seek in a given run, or segment
of a run, then you can check your display watch periodically throughout the
workout and adjust your pace as necessary without having to worry about your
pace or having to rely entirely on perceived exertion to control your effort. Table
1.1 presents a summary of the primary physiological training effects associated
with training at various heart rates.

Table 1.1 Physiological Adaptations Associated With Training at Various

Heart Rates
Percentage of
maximum
heart rate Physiological adaptation Fitness benefit
60–70 Increased muscle mitochondria density Increased aerobic capacity
Increased capillary density (minimal)
Increased aerobic enzyme activity Increased endurance (moderate)
Increased fat oxidation capacity
71–75 Increased muscle mitochondria density Increased aerobic capacity
Increased capillary density (minimal)
Increased aerobic enzyme activity Increased fatigue resistance at
Increase carbohydrate oxidation capacity moderate paces (moderate)
Increased muscle glycogen storage
76–80 Increased heart stroke volume Increased aerobic capacity
Increased muscle mitochondria density (moderate)
Increased capillary density Increased resistance to fatigue at
Increased aerobic enzyme activity marathon pace (strong)
Increase carbohydrate oxidation capacity
Increased muscle glycogen storage
Increased oxygen transport capacity
81–90 Increased heart stroke volume Increased aerobic capacity
Increased oxygen transport capacity (moderate)
Increased carbohydrate oxidation capacity Increased running economy
Increased neuromuscular coordination Increased fatigue resistance
Increased lactate shuttling and metabolism at half-marathon to 10K pace
(strong)
91–100 Increased heart stroke volume Increased aerobic capacity
Increased fast-twitch muscle fiber (strong)
recruitment Increased anaerobic capacity
Increased resistance to muscle cell (moderate)
depolarization Increased speed
Increased stride power Increased running economy
Increased neuromuscular coordination Increased fatigue resistance at
5K to 1,500 m pace (strong)
 Gaining the Technological Advantage 5

The earliest attempts to develop target heart-rate training methodologies were

aimed at producing one-size-fits-all protocols that worked for people at all fitness
levels in every sport. Simple formulas were used to establish heart-rate zones
that divided the heart-rate continuum into levels between recovery intensity
and maximum intensity. The simplest and most primitive methodology used
the formula of 220 beats per minute (bpm) minus age in years to determine an
individual maximum heart rate and a table such as table 1.1 to establish indi-
vidual target heart-rate zones based on the maximum heart-rate value.
It didn’t take very long for athletes, coaches, and exercise scientists to discover
major flaws in such one-size-fits-all protocols. First of all, it was observed that
maximum heart-rate values, as well as the percentage of maximum heart rate
(HRmax) that could be sustained for any given time, varied considerably from
activity to activity. For example, runners can generally achieve higher heart
rates than cyclists, who in turn can achieve higher heart rates than swimmers.
Further complicating matters, testing showed that the formula of 220 minus
age was inaccurate for most athletes. What’s more, it was discovered that uni-
form target heart-rate zones based on percentages of maximum heart rate often
were not appropriate for individual athletes, and typically became more or less
appropriate for individual athletes as their fitness levels changed. For example,
some target heart-rate zone tables established lactate threshold heart rate as
81 to 90 percent of HRmax. (Lactate threshold is the exercise intensity level
above which lactate begins to accumulate rapidly in the blood, and it usually
corresponds to roughly one hour of maximum effort in trained athletes.) There
are three major problems with these zones:
1. The actual lactate threshold heart rate for any individual athlete is much
more specific than a full 10 percentage point range.
2. As a percentage of maximum heart rate, lactate threshold values vary
considerably among athletes, from as low as 70 percent of HRmax to more
than 90 percent.
3. The lactate threshold heart rate of each athlete changes with his or her
fitness level.
Fortunately, a few noteworthy experts have since developed better methodolo-
gies for establishing target heart-rate zones that overcome these flaws. One of
the best was developed by our colleague Joe Friel. It ignores HRmax completely
and instead bases target heart-rate zones on lactate threshold heart rate, which
is determined through field testing. The simplest field test for lactate threshold
heart rate is to run a 30-minute time trial (after a thorough warm-up) at a steady
pace. Your average heart rate for the final 10 minutes is considered your lactate
threshold heart rate, although it’s actually somewhat higher than the value that
6 The Runner’s Edge

would be arrived at through laboratory testing. You then look up this value on
a table for your specific sport—in this case running—which gives you target
heart-rate zones for all of the training zones in Friel’s system. Following is a list-
ing of the approximate heart-rate range associated with each zone for running.
To establish your zones, you would multiply your lactate threshold heart rate
(LT HR) by the percentage associated with the bottom and top of each zone.
Zone 1: Active recovery (>80% of LT HR)
Zone 2: Aerobic threshold (81 to 89% of LT HR)
Zone 3: Tempo (90 to 95% LT HR)
Zone 4: Sublactate threshold (96 to 99% LT HR)
Zone 5a: Lactate threshold (100 to 101% LT HR)
Zone 5b: Aerobic capacity (102 to 105% LT HR)
Zone 5c: Anaerobic capacity (>106% LT HR)

The final step in the process is to repeat your lactate threshold field test every
few weeks and adjust your target heart-rate zones to match changes in your
fitness level.
The advent of speed and distance technology has made possible an even sim-
pler and more accurate way to establish target heart-rate zones. All you have to
do is wear your heart-rate monitor while performing pace-based workouts such
as those using the pace zone index (PZI) system presented in chapter 4. Press
the Lap button on the display watch at the beginning and end of a segment of
the run that is performed at a given target pace. After completing the workout,
download the data and inspect the graph of each workout to determine the
heart rate that is associated with each target pace. Since no single workout ever
encompasses every target pace (there are six separate target pace zones in the
PZI system), repeat this process in different workouts until you have covered all
of the target pace zones and found the heart rate associated with each.
While we recommend that you rely mainly on pace to monitor and control
the intensity of your runs, heart-rate zones established through pace-based
training can be a good substitute whenever you are unable to train with your
speed and distance device.

Track Changes in Fitness

You can use heart-rate monitors in a few different ways to track changes in fit-
ness level. One way is called orthostatic testing. Put on your heart-rate monitor,
lie down for a few minutes, and note your heart rate. Now stand up, wait 15
seconds, and note your heart rate again. Your second heart-rate measurement
most likely will be 15 to 30 bpm higher than the first. If you perform orthostatic
testing regularly while training toward peak fitness, the difference between the
 Gaining the Technological Advantage 7

two measurements likely will decrease as your heart becomes more powerful
and efficient.
An alternative to orthostatic testing that you can use in the context of workouts
is heart-rate recovery testing. At the end of a run, cool down with easy jogging
until your heart rate levels off at a round number, say 120 bpm, and then stop.
After stopping, note how long it takes for your heart rate to drop to 100 bpm. As
you gain fitness, your heart rate will drop faster. Be sure to use the same starting
heart rate each time you repeat the test. The precise heart rate you choose as a
starting number is unimportant. It should just be a heart rate within the range
associated with your recovery jogging pace. Choosing a round number within
this range might make it easier to remember.
There are other ways of using a heart-rate monitor to track changes in your
fitness level that require simultaneous performance measurement. One of the
more sophisticated ways of combining these two types of measurement involves
tracking the alignment of your goal race pace for a particular event and your
heart rate at race pace. If you are training to achieve a certain time goal in an
upcoming race, a specific pace per mile associated with that time represents
your goal race pace. For example, if your goal is to run a 3:10:00 marathon, your
goal race pace is 7:15 per mile.
When you run the race, your performance also will be associated with a cer-
tain average heart rate. At the beginning of the process of training for this race,
when performing race-pace workouts, your average heart rate will be higher,
indicating that you are not yet efficient enough at your goal pace to sustain it
for the full race distance. As the training process unfolds, you should observe a
lowering trend in your average heart rate at this pace. You also can flip it around
and perform workouts at your race-pace heart rate (this requires that you have
heart-rate data from previous races at the same distance that were run at peak
fitness) and look for a trend toward increasing average speed at this heart rate.
There is some debate about whether the information derived from this sort of
analysis is worth the bother, and in fact we do not use it in our own coaching,
but there are some very successful coaches, including Bobby McGee, who do.
(Read about Bobby McGee’s approach to balancing pace and heart rate in the
sidebar.)
Using the software that comes with your device, or an aftermarket product
such as Training Peaks WKO+, you can perform this type of analysis with every
run. Just download your workout, look at the graph, and note the average heart
rate associated with your average pace for a segment of the workout in which
you ran at a steady pace. Then go back to a similar workout performed a few
weeks earlier and note the pace associated with the same heart rate or the heart
rate associated with the same pace. If you’re getting fitter, you will find that in
your recent workout, you either ran at a faster pace at the same heart rate or had
8 The Runner’s Edge

Bobby McGee on Balancing Pace and Heart Rate

Expert Perspective

Originally from South Africa and now based in Boulder, Colorado, Bobby McGee has
coached runners at all levels since the late 1970s, and he has coached with speed
and distance devices since the Timex Speed and Distance first hit the market in 2002.
Before that time, McGee had used heart-rate monitors with his athletes. When the
new generation of speed and distance devices came along, he put a lot of thought
into how best to balance and integrate the two types of measurement, which can be
taken with a single hybrid device such as the Polar RS800. The results of this process
are very interesting.
McGee now relies heavily on heart rate–pace relationships to monitor, analyze, and
plan the training of his athletes. “With the combination of heart rate and pace, you
can triangulate a single workout that allows you to say, ‘If I hit these numbers, I know I
can accomplish my race goal.’” McGee’s training plans culminate in highly race-specific
workouts in which runners monitor both pace and heart rate and try to sustain the
goal race pace and hope to not exceed their race heart rates. (An example of such a
workout for a 10K runner is 5 × 2K with 3-minute walking recoveries.)
Velocity and heart rate are seldom given equal weight in this process, however. “I
do heart-rate workouts in the early part of the season,” he explains. “At that time,
we’re training the central physiology—the heart and lungs—and we don’t really care
about leg speed. But when we get closer to racing, I have them focus on velocity, and
heart rate moves into the background. Then I’ll say, ‘Run at your goal pace and ignore
your heart rate. But keep your heart-rate monitor going, and afterward we can see if
you had the heart rate we need.’”
For example, McGee’s marathon runners often begin their focused race prepara-
tion by running 3 or 4 kilometers at precisely their goal marathon pace and note the
heart rate associated with that pace. For the next several weeks, they will do workouts
that target that heart rate. Speed is not used to control the workout intensity, but it is
monitored, and McGee looks to see the runner moving faster and faster at the same
heart rate.
In the latter part of the training process, this pattern is inverted. The runner performs
increasingly challenging workouts at his or her goal race pace. Heart rate is ignored
during the workout, but not afterward. McGee looks to see the heart rate coming
down as the pace remains the same over longer distances.
“Heart-rate numbers by themselves never meant much to me,” McGee says. “Com-
paring heart rate and velocity numbers is very instructive, however. And speed and
distance devices are quite useful for that purpose.”

a lower heart rate at the same pace. It should be noted, though, that heart rate
can be affected by various factors, such as temperature, sleep, and emotional
arousal, so there will be some variability in this response.

Monitor Recovery Status

Adequate physiological recovery between workouts is critical to the process
of fitness development. The central nervous system plays an important role in
 Gaining the Technological Advantage 9

various recovery processes. The nervous system has two components. The sym-
pathetic nervous system specializes in handling stress and is therefore highly
active during exercise. It raises the heart rate, among other things. The para-
sympathetic nervous system specializes in recovering from stress and becomes
most active after exercise. It lowers the heart rate, among other things. When
an athlete trains too hard or gets too little recovery between workouts, the sym-
pathetic nervous system becomes chronically overexcited, one consequence of
which is an elevated heart rate between workouts.
Based on this fact, you can use the orthostatic testing method described
previously to monitor your recovery status. If the difference between your lying
and standing heart rates fails to decrease over time despite increasing training,
you have reason to suspect that you are not getting enough recovery and should
scale back your training.

Quantify the Stress of Workouts

In the 1970s, an exercise scientist named Eric Banister created a heart rate-based
system of quantifying the stress of workouts. In this system, the duration and
average heart rate of a workout are plugged into a complex formula that yields
a training impulse score. What’s cool about the training impulse model is that
it enables athletes to make “apples to apples” comparisons of all types of work-
outs. For example, you can figure out just how far you have to run at a low heart
rate to achieve a training impulse that is equal to a short, high-intensity interval
workout. Banister and other scientists who built on his work used the training
impulse model primarily to establish precise quantitative relationships between
training stress and performance. This work yielded valuable insights into the most
effective rate of training stress increase, the time course of recovery from training
stress, and other such matters that can help athletes shape their future training in
a manner that maximizes the likelihood of peak performance at the right times.
As powerful as it is, the training impulse model has several drawbacks,
including the fact that it is incredibly complex and impractical for everyone
except a few experts on the model. A few years ago, in an effort to salvage the
strengths of the training impulse model and discard its weaknesses, Andrew
Coggan created a new way of quantifying the training stress of workouts that
is specific to cyclists and uses power data instead of heart rate. In this model,
each workout is assigned a training stress score (TSS). Impressed by the sim-
plicity and power of TSS, Stephen McGregor subsequently created a formula
to determine TSS in running based on pace data from a speed and distance
device. Most recently, Stephen’s colleagues at Training Peaks found an accurate
way to translate power-based and pace-derived TSS scores into heart rate-based
TSS scores, which allow cyclists and runners to quantify the stress of workouts
when they don’t have pace or power data.
10 The Runner’s Edge

Training stress score is one of the most important performance management

concepts. You can use it to gather all kinds of information and insights that will
help you train more effectively. In coming chapters you will learn how to use
TSS and other related concepts to achieve performance management objectives
such as determining how long you should train for a marathon and how often
you should schedule recovery weeks.

Limitations of Heart-Rate Monitors

As useful as they are, heart-rate monitors have significant limitations for run-
ners. Even in the most sophisticated heart rate-based training systems, the
prescribed target heart-rate zones do not always fit the individual runner. In
addition, heart-rate monitoring is not useful in short intervals and very high-
intensity efforts, and as previously stated, heart rate is affected by factors such
as temperature and emotional status. And most important, heart-rate data are
not performance-relevant for runners. Let’s take a closer look at each of these
limitations.

Zones Don’t Always Fit

The relationship between heart rate and exercise intensity varies considerably
among individual runners. Even runners who have the same lactate threshold
heart rate as determined through testing might find that their heart rates behave
very differently at exercise intensities above and below the lactate threshold.
For this reason, the heart-rate zones that any given heart rate-based training
system prescribes for runners who share a certain lactate threshold heart rate
might fit one runner better than another.
For example, a relatively unfit runner and a very fit runner might both have a
lactate threshold heart rate of 170 bpm. However, this number might represent
only 75 percent of the unfit runner’s maximum heart rate, whereas it might
be 85 percent of the very fit runner’s maximum heart rate. Yet while the unfit
runner would struggle to sustain efforts at a slightly higher heart rate—say, 177
bpm—the fitter runner might be able to sustain such efforts much more easily.
In some heart rate-based. training systems, a heart rate of 177 bpm falls within
the aerobic capacity or VO2max training zone for all runners sharing a lactate
threshold heart rate. But in this example,
. a heart rate of 177 bpm is probably
not an appropriate target heart rate in VO2max intervals for both the unfit and
the very fit runner. The unfit runner should aim a few beats lower and the very
fit runner a few beats higher.
Based on the uniqueness of each runner’s heart-rate profile, we believe it’s
best to skip the heart-rate zone formulas and do pace-based workouts using
the pace zone index. As suggested previously, if you wear a heart-rate monitor
 Gaining the Technological Advantage 11

during your workouts, you can hit the Lap button at the beginning and end of
segments at various target paces and then review your workout data after com-
pleting your runs to determine the heart rate associated with each target pace.
With this information, you can use heart rate as a secondary means of gauging
the intensity of your workouts.

Not Useful in Short Intervals and Very

High-Intensity Efforts
In running, the maximum heart rate is reached at submaximal paces—usually
3,000-meter to 800-meter race pace, depending on the runner. When running
speed is increased further, the heart rate does not increase because it has already
hit a ceiling. Further, the heart rate response is quite slow compared to changes
in pace. Thus, at the end of a 200-meter sprint, your heart rate likely will be no
higher, and may actually be lower, than it is at the end of a 3,000-meter race,
despite the fact that you run 20 to 25 percent faster in the sprint.
Because heart rate plateaus at submaximal running paces, heart-rate monitor-
ing cannot be used to quantify and control exercise intensity during very high-
intensity training intervals or shorter races. What’s more, heart rate does not
rise instantaneously to match sudden increases in pace. For this reason, when
you run shorter intervals—which, of course, tend to be very fast intervals—your
heart rate will not reach a level that is truly indicative of your exercise intensity
until you’re 30 or more seconds into it. Due to this phenomenon of cardiac lag,
as well as that of the heart-rate plateau, heart-rate monitoring is not useful in
your fastest and shortest training efforts.

Not Relevant to Performance

The greatest limitation of heart-rate monitoring is that it’s not relevant to a
runner’s performance. Heart rate alone tells you nothing about your capacity
to perform as a runner. Races are run by time. The only performance-relevant
variables are time over distance and pace. You can’t set heart-rate goals. Well,
you could, but such goals wouldn’t make much sense! As Joe Friel says, “They
don’t give out medals for the highest heart rate. They give out medals for cross-
ing the finish line first.” For this reason, heart rate can’t motivate you to train
harder or push yourself more in races.
Perhaps the most significant advantage of training by pace over training by
heart rate is simply that training by pace—if done properly—pushes you to run
harder in your key workouts and thus get more benefit from those workouts. Pace
and time over distance are meaningful to runners. For this reason, you almost
always will perform better in your harder workouts if, instead of just running
hard by feel, you run in pursuit of a goal time or pace that forces you to run a
12 The Runner’s Edge

bit faster than you would run

by feel—just as you will almost
always run the homestretch of
a race faster if you’re battling
another runner for position
than if you’re all alone.
Naturally, you’re not sup-
posed to push your limits in
every workout. Heart rate and
pace monitoring alike actually
should be used to moderate
your effort in many work-
outs. But your fitness gets the
greatest boost from those key
workouts in which you do
push your limits; pace moni-
toring will help you push your
© Nick Laham/Getty Images Sport

limits and get more out of these

workouts, whereas heart-rate
monitoring will not.

Shannon Rowbury wins the women’s 1500m

at the Adidas Track Classic. Races are won
based on time over distance and pace, not
heart rate.

Speed and Distance 101

Two types of speed and distance devices provide real-time measurements of
running distance, time, and pace. Devices such as the Timex Bodylink use GPS
technology. Signals are sent between the device and satellites in outer space to
triangulate your precise position to within a foot, and changes in your position
are used to calculate the information you’re interested in tracking. Devices such
as the Nike Triax use accelerometer technology. An accelerometer is a device that
measures changes in the rate of forward movement. Unlike pedometers—more
primitive devices that merely count steps and can’t account for variability in
stride length— accelerometer-based devices contain sensors that you attach to
the laces of your shoe and make several hundred measurements per second for
more accurate data.
 Gaining the Technological Advantage 13

Seven Uses of a Speed and Distance

Device
Speed and distance devices of both types—GPS based and accelerometer
based—can benefit your training in more ways than you probably ever imag-
ined. We briefly discuss seven uses for speed and distance devices here. You
will learn how to execute these uses in later chapters.

Maintain Target Pace in Workouts and Races

The most basic use of a speed and distance device is for monitoring your pace
during runs. While it is interesting to know how fast you are running at any
given time, this information is not intrinsically helpful. To make pace monitoring
beneficial to your training, you need to start each run with one or more specific
target pace levels in mind and use your speed and distance device to ensure
that you hit these targets. If you perform appropriately structured workouts and
select pace targets that are appropriate for your current fitness level, you will
get exactly the fitness benefit you seek from each run.
Controlling workout intensity by pace is more effective than controlling it by
heart rate because pace is directly relevant to performance. While it’s enlighten-
ing to know your heart rate, oxygen consumption rate, blood lactate level, and
other physiological parameters when running, the relationship between each
of these physiological parameters and performance is complex. And in the end,
performance is what really matters. Consider two runners who are both capable
of running a 20:00 5K. When running side by side during a 5K race, these run-
ners would likely have different heart rates, oxygen consumption rates, blood
lactates, and so forth. It is the sum of these disparate physiological variables in
each runner that makes both capable of running a 20:00 5K. Therefore it would
not be appropriate for either of them to do workouts based entirely on just one
of these variables. Only performance accounts for all of them.
These two runners will get the best results from their training if they do
pace-based workouts scaled to their performance level. Since they race at the
same pace, they should perform every type of workout at more or less the same
pace, regardless of how each of them achieves these pace levels physiologically.
The pace zone index is a simple tool that was developed by Matt Fitzgerald
with Training Peaks to enable runners with speed and distance devices to select
appropriate target pace levels for each workout and execute their pace-based runs
correctly. This tool is based on the VDOT pace-based training system developed
by Jack Daniels and described in his 2005 book Daniels’ Running Formula. There
are other pace-based training systems, but we recommend that you use the pace
zone index because of its compatibility with speed and distance devices. To get
started on this system, our hypothetical 20:00 5K runners would simply look
14 The Runner’s Edge

up their 5K time in table 4.1 (see page 63), find the PZI level associated with it,
and then move to table 4.2 on page 68 to locate the target pace zones for vari-
ous workout intensities.

Develop a Sense of Pace

Pacing is a critical and underappreciated factor in running performance. Achieving
maximum performance in races requires that you have a good feel for exactly how
much to restrain your pace in the early part of a race so that you reach the finish
line just before fatigue forces you to slow down. No runner has a perfect sense of
his or her performance limits, but some have a better sense than others, and every
runner becomes a better self-pacer with experience. Workouts and races calibrate
your sense of pace by enabling the largely subconscious parts of your brain that
regulate pace to create associations between the feeling of running at different
paces and the amount of time it takes for fatigue to develop at each of these paces.
Training by pace facilitates this important process by feeding your brain
with additional objective information that it can use to calibrate its pacing
mechanism. For example, if you are training to break 3:10:00 in a marathon, a
finishing time that’s associated with a pace of 7:15 per mile, you will develop
a much better feel for this pace if you wear a speed and distance device during
marathon-pace workouts and see uninterrupted visual confirmation of the fact
that you are running at 7:15 pace while simultaneously experiencing the feeling
of running at this pace. A stopwatch is not as useful for this purpose because
it allows you to check your pace only when you reach distance markers (usu-
ally once every mile or km), whereas a speed and distance device allows you to
monitor your pace continuously.

Design and Execute Pace-Based Training Plans

The pace zone index features six target training pace zones. There are 10 total
pace zones, but four of them are gray zones that are not targeted in workouts.
The appropriate distribution of your weekly training among the six target pace
zones depends on your goal race distance and how far along you are in the train-
ing process. Using the pace zone index and the proven principles and methods
of training for races of various distances, you can design training regimens in
which your pace zone distribution is planned and varied optimally from the
very first week of training to the very last.
Among the cool features of some of the performance management software
programs for runners is one that shows you how much time you have spent
running in each pace zone over the last week, or four weeks, or other time
period. This feature enables you to determine whether your actual training pace
distribution matches what you had planned. Any discrepancy might explain a
weakness in your running fitness. Then you can make adjustments to correct
it. Figure 1.1 shows a sample 28-day pace zone distribution graph.
 Gaining the Technological Advantage 15

Figure 1.1 Sample pace zone distribution graph.

Courtesy of TrainingPeaks (www.trainingpeaks.com).

Get Encouragement to Train Harder

As suggested previously, one advantage of pace monitoring over heart-rate moni-
toring is that pace monitoring tends to encourage you to run harder in those
key workouts in which it is appropriate to test your limits. The performance-
enhancing effect of feedback has been demonstrated scientifically. In a British
study, 40 healthy male subjects performed a challenging shuttle run test both
with and without performance feedback—specifically, pace and time informa-
tion—provided by observers. The researchers found that the subjects performed
significantly better in the test with performance feedback. Clearly, they were
motivated by the numbers.
Seldom should you push yourself truly as hard as you can in workouts. Such
efforts would be counterproductive; they would take a long time to recover from
and would therefore sabotage your performance in your next few runs. A much
more productive way to use the performance data from a speed and distance
device in key workouts is to aim toward slightly exceeding your performance in
the last key workout of the same type. For example, if you ran a 10K tempo run
in 43:12 two weeks ago and today you do another 10K tempo run, you should
aim to complete it in slightly under 43:12. A tempo run is not a time trial. The
goal is never to run as fast as you can. But by running the first key workout of
each type at the appropriate pace for your PZI level and then pushing to raise
the bar a bit in each subsequent workout of that type, you generally will train
a little harder and gain fitness slightly faster without overtaxing yourself and
failing to get the desired training effect from these workouts.

Track Training Workload

Although technically pace is an external measurement, it can serve as a useful
proxy of internal measurement. Earlier we explained that no single physiological
16 The Runner’s Edge

variable (heart rate, rate of oxygen consumption, blood lactate level, and so on)
presents a complete picture of how much stress the body as a whole experiences
during a run. However, pace, when considered in relation to the individual
runner’s performance level, does provide a complete picture of workout stress
because running pace and the duration spent running at that pace are the only
inputs that determine the totality of workout stress on the whole body.
Most runners keep track of their total running distance (also referred to as
mileage and expressed either in miles or kilometers) and use their mileage num-
bers to quantify how hard they are training. But total distance does not account
for the intensity of running, which also has a significant impact on total train-
ing stress. Thirty miles of fast running per week would likely be more stressful
than 50 slow miles. It’s really the combination of running mileage and running
intensity, or pace relative to performance level, that determines your training
load, or total training stress. Speed and distance devices and their associated
software make it possible to track your training workload, thus defined. The
most sophisticated example is the training stress score system mentioned previ-
ously, which is explained fully in chapter 5.
Tracking your training workload enables you to analyze the effect of training
on your fitness and performance in all kinds of ways. For example, Training
Peaks allows you to plot your best workout performances on a graph that shows
fluctuations in your training stress balance, which is essentially your fitness
level minus your fatigue level, over time. By looking at this simple picture,
you can readily determine the training stress balance that is optimal for your
performance.

Track Changes in Performance

Every runner with a stopwatch, access to a track or other measured running
courses, and a decent memory is able to track changes in his or her running
performance in a rudimentary way. For example, perhaps you ran 400-meter
intervals at the track three weeks ago and completed each lap in 86 to 89
seconds. Yesterday you ran 400-meter intervals again and completed each
lap in 84 to 87 seconds. The difference between your split times in these two
workouts provides a solid indication that at least one aspect of your running
fitness is improving.
A speed and distance device, in combination with performance management
software, enables you to track changes in performance in more varied and
sophisticated ways. For example, if you use a speed and distance device with
heart-rate monitoring capability, every stride of every run you do can be used
to measure changes in performance. Simply choose a segment of a very recent
run in which you maintained a fairly steady pace and note the corresponding
 Gaining the Technological Advantage 17

average heart rate. Now go back a few weeks and find a segment of a run in
which you averaged the same pace over the same distance. If the correspond-
ing average heart rate is higher in this earlier workout, you have pretty good
evidence that you’ve gained efficiency at that particular pace. You can make this
type of comparison for any pace: a very fast-pace run in short intervals, your
goal pace for an upcoming marathon, your standard aerobic pace, or any other
pace you run with regularity.

Analyze and Assess Workout and Race

Performances
With a speed and distance device, you can analyze your workout and race
performances in more sophisticated ways than you could without one. You
can use the information and insights drawn from such analyses to shore up
weaknesses and avoid repeating mistakes. For example, in interval workouts
performed without a speed and distance device, you cannot analyze your pacing
very deeply. If you run intervals on a track, you can look at each 400-meter
split time for intervals that are 400 meters in length or longer. But with a speed
and distance device and the accompanying software, you can look at your pace
in segments of any length within each interval. Suppose you run 1-kilometer
(2.5-lap) intervals at the track. You could look at your pace for each 100-meter
segment of each interval to see how well you paced yourself.
A common tendency in such workouts is to run the first 200 to 300 meters
very fast, then slow considerably, and finally rebound a bit in the final 200 to
300 meters. This uneven pacing pattern may indicate poor fatigue resistance
and pain tolerance at the pace level that usually is targeted in intervals of this
length: pace zone 8 in the PZI system, or roughly 5K race pace. Making a con-
scious effort to run slightly slower at the start of these intervals and to prevent
a sagging of pace in the middle segment may help to address these weaknesses.
Alternatively, it may simply be that the sagging of pace in the middle of these
intervals is indicative that the first part is too fast. Regardless, by slowing the
first portion, a more appropriate pace for the interval can be achieved.
Another way to identify weaknesses is to compare your performance in
different types of workouts. For example, when you train using the PZI, most
of your key workouts are performed in pace zones 4, 6, 8, and 10. It can be
instructive to look at your average pace in workouts targeting each of these
four pace zones. If you tend to run toward the top end (that is, the slow end)
of one of these four target zones while running toward the low end (that is,
the fast end) of the others, then you are probably weak at that one particular
intensity level and should consider increasing your training at that intensity
level to address the problem.
18 The Runner’s Edge

Limitations of Speed and Distance

Devices
The usefulness of speed and distance devices in run training is limited in two
ways. First, pace is affected by hills; therefore the relationship between pace and
physiological intensity changes with the gradient of your running surface. The
variable of normalized graded pace (NGP), or flat pace, corrects for this effect, but
only after the fact (when you analyze the workout in your performance manage-
ment software), so you can’t use it to adjust your pace appropriately while you run.
In the future, flat pace may be integrated into one or more brands of speed and
distance devices. In the meantime, it is best to use heart rate to control pace on
hill climbs and descents. For example, as you approach a hill running at a target
pace, note your heart rate. As you begin climbing the hill, you can reduce your
pace as necessary to keep your heart rate fairly constant to maintain approximately
the same physiological effort, as opposed to overdoing it by trying to run the hill
at the same pace as on the flats, causing you to fatigue prematurely.
A second limitation of speed and distance devices is their accuracy. Most
are only 97 to 99 percent accurate. This level of accuracy is adequate for most
circumstances, but there are times when perfect accuracy would make a differ-
ence. For example, suppose you perform an interval workout on a road route,
having performed the same workout on a different road two weeks earlier. A
1 percent improvement in your interval pace between the first workout and
the second would be a good sign, but since your device’s margin of error is
probably greater than 1 percent, you can’t know with certainty whether this
improvement was real.
Different types of speed and distance devices, and different ways of using
them, are more or less accurate than others in various running environments.
For the casual runner, these differences, while they do have a measurable effect
on accuracy, are not worth worrying about. However, for a serious competitive
runner who trains with precise target paces for various workout types and wants
the greatest possible degree of accuracy in recorded workout data, these differ-
ences need to be accounted for and addressed as much as possible.

Roads
In normal training on the roads, all of the speed and distance devices from
major brands have an acceptable level of accuracy. For example, Matt Fitzgerald’s
Garmin 405 is consistently 99 percent accurate on the roads, which translates
to being roughly 4 seconds per mile off his actual pace.
That said, it’s useful to know exactly how accurate your device is. You can
determine your unit’s level of accuracy by using a bike computer to measure
 Gaining the Technological Advantage 19

off a mile on a stretch of road you frequently run, and then run it to see how
your speed and distance device’s measurement compares. Using this method
and other similar comparison methods, Matt has found that his Garmin is not
really accurate to within ±1 percent, as you might expect. Rather, it consistently
overestimates distance by roughly 1 percent. This knowledge allows him to
make a mental correction of the data his device gives him in every road run.
For example, if it tells him he ran 18 miles at 6:56 per mile, he knows he really
ran something closer to 17.82 miles at 7:00 per mile.

Tracks
Most GPS-based speed and distance devices grossly overestimate distance on
standard 400-meter running tracks. The GPS tracking resolution just isn’t
adequate for reading those tight counterclockwise turns precisely. Since perfect
accuracy is paramount in track workouts, these devices are essentially useless
in that environment. However, some GPS-based speed and distance devices
can be converted to accelerometer-based devices with the purchase of a foot
pod. The foot pod can be calibrated on the track itself, providing better accu-
racy there in some circumstances. Because this depends on the consistency
of the individual’s cadence and stride length, there are limitations to foot pod
accuracy as well. If you make a habit of running on tracks, you should either
purchase an accelerometer-based device such as the Suunto t6 or convert your
device with a foot pod.
We have been assured that the performance of GPS-based speed and distance
devices on the track will improve in the future. It’s a matter of waiting for a full
switchover to a dual-frequency GPS platform.

Treadmills
Naturally, you can’t use a GPS-based speed and distance device indoors on
a treadmill. Since a properly calibrated treadmill provides accurate informa-
tion on speed and distance, you might wonder why you would even need to
use a speed and distance device on a treadmill. The reason is data capture.
Monitoring and controlling speed and distance are only half the purpose
of using a speed and distance device. Capturing data to download onto
your training log is the other purpose, and for that you need a speed and
distance device.
If you run regularly on a treadmill, purchase either an accelerometer-based
speed and distance device or a foot pod that converts your GPS-based device
for use indoors. This will allow you to capture pace, distance, and possibly also
heart rate data throughout your treadmill workouts, just as you do on the track
and on the road.
20 The Runner’s Edge

Hilly Routes
Some speed and distance devices record changes in elevation more accurately
than others. This is something you’ll want to consider if you make a habit of
running on hilly routes. Accelerometers actually can’t measure elevation changes
at all. Accelerometer-based speed and distance devices rely on built-in barometric
pressure sensors to measure changes in elevation. Not all accelerometer-based
speed and distance devices have built-in barometric pressure sensors, however,
and among those that do, some are better than others. The best ones are in
high-end units such as the Polar RS800CX.
A good barometric pressure sensor generally measures elevation changes
more accurately than GPS, which does a poor job of it. Fortunately, mapping
technologies available in some performance management software applications
can largely correct for the inaccuracy of elevation-change data collected on a
run with a GPS-based speed and distance device. These elevation-correction
tools match the coordinates of your route (as mapped by your device) against
precise topographical maps of those coordinates to determine the actual elevation
changes you experienced during the run. So if you use a GPS-based speed and
distance device, be sure to use a performance management software application
with elevation-correction capability.

Your Digital Coach

Speed and distance devices and heart-rate monitors allow you to do for yourself
many of the things that a good running coach does for his or her athletes, but in
somewhat different and often more powerful ways. The main job of a running
coach is to manage the athlete’s performance. The latest running technologies
make effective performance management easy to do without a coach. Indeed,
using these technologies is like having your own digital coach that you can stuff
in a drawer between workouts and analysis sessions.
Heart-rate monitoring alone is not adequate for effective performance manage-
ment. Pace monitoring provides enough information for a self-coached runner to
plan and execute training for optimal results, but combined pace and heart-rate
monitoring will allow a runner to do even more. If you can afford the $150 to
$250 price tag of a device that combines speed and distance monitoring and
heart-rate monitoring capabilities, we suggest you get one. It’s still a lot cheaper
than hiring a coach!
 CHAPTER

2
Choosing the
Right Technology

B efore you can train with a speed and distance device, you have to own one.
The purchase of such a device is one you’ll want to make carefully. These
tools are not cheap, so it’s important that you know as much as possible about
the model you favor before you take it home, lest you suffer from $150 or more
worth of buyer’s remorse. There are significant differences between models,
and none of them is every runner’s favorite. You will greatly increase the odds
of purchasing a device you’re happy with if you first educate yourself about all
of the major brands. This chapter gives you that education.
The six major players in the market for speed and distance devices for run-
ners are Garmin, Nike, Polar, Silva, Suunto, and Timex. Except for Polar, all of
these companies make both stand-alone speed and distance devices and speed
and distance devices with integrated heart-rate monitors. Polar includes a heart-
rate monitor with all of its speed and distance devices and also sells heart-rate
monitors separately. New models are being introduced and existing models
modified and phased out rapidly, so we avoid mentioning specific models in
the following pages and instead focus our discussion on the key characteristics
of each brand, which are manifest in most if not all of the brand’s individual
models and are less likely to change in the future.

Garmin
Founded in 1989, Garmin is a Kansas-based company that specializes in
developing and selling GPS devices. It won’t surprise you, then, to learn that
most of Garmin’s run speed and distance devices use GPS technology. In our
experience, Garmin makes the most reliable GPS devices. They are quite accu-
rate and are the least likely to have their signals interrupted midrun by clouds,

21
22 The Runner’s Edge

trees, and other obstructions. Garmin was also the first manufacturer of speed
and distance devices to install the GPS inside the wrist display unit, so there
is only one piece of hardware to worry about (besides the heart-rate monitor
strap). Many runners prefer this design to that of the Timex Bodylink, which
has a separate wristwatch and GPS unit worn strapped around the upper arm.
In our testing, the Garmin Forerunner’s distance readings were consistently
98 to 99 percent accurate on roads. They were considerably less accurate on
running tracks, however. If you purchase a Forerunner with plans to use it
regularly on running tracks, we strongly recommend that you also buy the
foot pod accessory that allows you to instantly convert the Forerunner into
an accelerometer-based speed and distance device. The foot pod looks like a
miniature computer mouse and is attached to the top of either shoe through
the laces. It also can be placed in the accelerometer pockets of those running
shoes that have them, such as certain Adidas models. When the foot pod and
the Garmin speed and distance device are both switched on, the device detects
the foot pod and prompts the user to link to it so that it receives speed and
distance data from the foot pod instead of its built-in GPS. You can calibrate the
accelerometer right on the track for better accuracy. The foot pod enables you
to use the unit indoors on a treadmill, as well. There is also a Garmin speed
and distance device that contains no GPS and is strictly accelerometer based.
Garmin’s Forerunner line deserves high marks for accuracy, reliability, and
ease of use. What it lacks is any cool proprietary features to compete with
Polar’s Running Index and Suunto’s Training Effect, which more fully realize
the potential power of this type of technology.
With the purchase of MotionBased, now called Garmin Connect, a Web
application that imports GPS data into functional analysis and online mapping
tools, Garmin offers the most sophisticated mapping features of any company
in the business. It allows you to do all kinds of cool things, such as wirelessly
share workout information with other Garmin users and replay past workouts
on a map, with a moving dot representing your progress along the route, to
compare your pacing in different workouts on the same course at various points
in the training process.
Some of the most useful tools on the device are more basic. A Virtual Partner
helps you maintain a predetermined target pace in workouts and races by show-
ing you exactly where you are in relation to a little stick figure who maintains
that pace perfectly (for example, “You are ahead by 0:15”). An autolap feature
can be used to collect split times at any distance automatically as you run. You
also can store a large number of preprogrammed workouts on the device, which
guides you through the specific workout you’ve selected as you execute it. You
can even download entire training plans onto the device, which then coaches
you through each workout day by day. Finally, Garmins are the only speed and
 Choosing the Right Technology 23

distance devices that allow the user to program 10 pace zones—for example,
all 10 zones of the Pace Zone Index.
Garmin speed and distance devices come with a performance management
software application called Garmin Training Center (GTC). With GTC you can
view detailed graphs of your workout data plotted over time or distance and
create customized workouts with specific goals and rest intervals.
Some Garmin speed and distance devices can be mounted on a bike handlebar
and used as a cycling computer. All models are sold either as stand-alone speed
and distance devices or with an integrated heart-rate monitor.

Nike
The world’s largest sporting goods brand entered the speed and distance device
market with the Triax Elite, which, like competing devices made by other brands,
consists of an accelerometer foot pod, a wristwatch, and a heart-rate monitor
strap. The Triax Elite is still on the market, but it has been hugely overshadowed
by Nike+, which has radically changed the face of the speed and distance device
market. Nike+ has taken this technology to the masses. Companies such as
Timex and Polar number their annual sales of speed and distance devices in the
tens of thousands of units. Codeveloped by the Apple computer company, the
Nike+ was purchased by nearly half a million runners in its first three months
on the market in 2006.
Nike has taken the bold step of making nearly all of its running shoes Nike+
compatible, which means they are designed with a recess underneath the insole
where a small Nike+ accelerometer, sold separately, can be placed. It sends
information on speed and distance either to an Apple iPod, which transmits
the data audibly to the runner through headphones, or to a wristband for visual
display. Workout data can then be uploaded onto a Mac or PC and, from there,
uploaded onto a personal online training log. Nike has created a lot of excite-
ment around the Nike+ with a brilliant marketing campaign that includes online
team challenges, in which groups of runners vie to log the highest cumulative
Nike+ distance over a designated time period.
The Nike+ is not suitable for serious performance management, however.
In general it is less accurate than most other speed and distance devices and
becomes increasingly inaccurate as the runner’s speed increases above or
decreases below the pace that was run during the device’s initial calibration.
Thus the data collected in variable-pace workouts such as the typical interval
session are worthless. In addition, the Nike+ Web site’s data analysis tools lack
sophistication.
For all of these reasons, we recommend that Nike fans wanting to commit
to digital performance management purchase the Triax Elite. It is significantly
24 The Runner’s Edge

more accurate than the Nike+ system and it comes with full-featured perfor-
mance management software. The foot pod, which must be attached to the laces
of a shoe, is rather bulky compared to the Nike+ accelerometer unit, however.

Polar
Polar made athlete heart-rate monitors for many years before the company pro-
duced its first running speed and distance device. Given Polar’s technological
heritage, it was only to be expected that the company would decide to include
an integrated heart-rate monitor with each of its speed and distance devices.
And they are the best heart-rate monitors on the market, featuring comfortable,
durable chest straps, smooth heart-rate readings, and cool proprietary features.
Among these features (not all of which are available on every model) are recovery
measurement time, which measures how quickly your heart rate drops at the
end of a workout; OwnOptimizer, which is a built-in modified version of ortho-
static testing; and the Running Index, which rates each run through a complex
analysis of the relationship between your pace and heart rate in a given run.
Most of Polar’s speed and distance devices use accelerometer technology. As with
other brands, the accelerometer is contained in a foot pod that is attached to the
shoe, but it’s smaller and easier to attach and remove than most. One downside
of this convenience, however, is that even a slight shift in the positioning of the
foot pod from one installation to the next may result in the need for recalibration.
Runners who wear Adidas running shoes and apparel have another option.
Adidas and Polar have teamed up to provide an integrated system, called
WearLink, in which the heart-rate monitor is affixed to the running top and the
accelerometer is placed inside the shoe, as in the Nike+ system.
Just as some of Garmin’s GPS-based speed and distance devices can be con-
verted into accelerometers with the purchase of an optional foot pod, some of
Polar’s accelerometer-based models can be converted into GPS devices with the
purchase of an optional GPS unit that is worn strapped to the upper arm. There’s
no significant difference in accuracy between the two options, and Polar’s GPS
unit lacks the sophisticated mapping support that Garmin’s has. What’s more,
only the accelerometer option allows the user to monitor stride cadence and
length, which can be useful. Throw in the greater versatility of the accelerom-
eter (more accurate on running tracks, usable indoors), and we think that with
Polar’s speed and distance devices, the foot pod is the way to go.
Polar’s performance management application, Polar Personal Trainer, is
among the best. It is hosted online at www.polarpersonaltrainer.com. When
you connect the device to your computer and download a workout, it is logged
into your online training calendar. Use the application to track your training by
the day, week, or month through any variable from mileage to Running Index
score. You also can use it to create complete training plans and then download
them onto your device to follow day by day.
 John Stanton on the Intimidation Factor

Expert Perspective
John Stanton has known about and advocated run speed and distance devices longer
than almost anyone else. Stanton is the founder of Canada’s largest chain of running
specialty stores, The Running Room, which is headquartered in Calgary, Alberta,
Canada, just down the road from the University of Alberta, where the accelerometer
technology that is used in many devices was developed. Thanks to his connections
there, Stanton enjoyed the opportunity to be among the first runners and coaches to
test the technology.
To say that Stanton is a fan of the technology is to be guilty of a gross understate-
ment. “I think it’s the best thing to come along since the stopwatch,” he says.
The Running Room sells more speed and distance devices than any other Canadian
retailer. Besides its strong advocacy of the technology, the key to The Running Room’s
success in selling speed and distance devices is its efforts to help customers overcome
feelings of intimidation about the newness of the technology, its proper use, and even
the price of some products.
The primary means by which Stanton and his staff help their customers overcome
their worries about the difficulty of using a speed and distance device is by taking
the time to show them how to operate the device. “Nobody gets much out of user’s
manuals,” he says. “It always seems so much easier when someone who understands
how to operate the product guides you through the process in person.” Stanton rec-
ommends that all runners in the market for their first speed and distance device do
their shopping at stores that provide the same level of service or learn to use a product
from a fellow runner who already owns it, preferably before buying it.
Stanton believes that some brands of speed and distance devices are easier to use
than others, and considers Garmin the most user-friendly brand. Manufacturers have
an obligation to create products that are not intimidating, he says, and he in turn feels
an obligation to steer customers toward the most user-friendly products, unless they
are more concerned about having specific features than about ease of use. Virtually
all manufacturers are making increasingly easy-to-use devices, notes Stanton, and he
urges runners who were turned off by the difficulty of earlier devices to give them a
second chance.
In Stanton’s experience, younger runners and beginning runners are the most
receptive to the new technology. “Today’s young people have grown up with so much
technology that they are very comfortable using it in every part of their lives, running
included,” he says. Novice runners like speed and distance devices for a different reason.
“I believe the number-one factor that prevents people from exercising is fear of embar-
rassment,” says Stanton. “Speed and distance devices help new runners overcome that
by giving them the ability to easily guide their own training.”
Stanton foresees a day, not too far in the future, when every sports watch is also
a speed and distance device. The technology will continue to become cheaper and
easier to use until speed and distance monitors are simply standard features of better
running watches, and the only runners who are intimidated by these devices are the
few who are intimidated by regular sports watches today. In the meantime, Stanton
is doing his part to make runners comfortable with the products that currently exist.
Indeed, the future is now at The Running Room store in Alberta. “We have a group
that meets regularly for workouts, and about 80 percent of them use speed and dis-
tance devices,” he says.

25
26 The Runner’s Edge

Triathletes will be happy to know that Polar makes one speed and distance
device that can be purchased with options that allow it to function as a bike
computer and power meter. For more information about this model, see page
185, under the heading Polar, in chapter 10.

Suunto
Suunto is the “other” Finnish company that manufactures speed and distance
devices for running. It was founded in 1936 as a compass maker. Suunto later
began to supply divers with watches specially designed for their needs. Only
within the past few years did the brand enter the endurance sport market. But
while Suunto is a latecomer to the speed and distance device market, and their
share of that market is but a sliver, it is widely agreed that their running prod-
ucts are as high quality as any.
Suunto offers both accelerometer-
based and GPS-based devices.
However, only the accelerometer-
based devices, which use a foot pod
that is clipped to the laces of a shoe,
is marketed specifically to runners.
The GPS-based device is sold as a
general outdoor sport unit. The easy
attachment and removal of the foot
pod make it convenient for run-
ners who use more than one pair of
shoes, but even slight discrepancies
in placement create the need for
recalibration, which requires a trip
to the local running track.
All models have the features
runners want, including program-
mable pace and heart-rate zones
and an auto-split feature. But some
© Walt Middleton/Icon SMI

unique advanced features make

Suunto’s offerings special. Most
notably, these devices estimate
excess postexercise oxygen con-
sumption (EPOC) and use these
data to calculate the training effect
Galen Rupp sprints to the finish line at
the NCAA Cross-Country Championship
of each workout (that is, how stress-
in Terra Haute, Indiana. Speed and ful it was). The devices also estimate
distance devices are useful in monitoring respiration rate and oxygen con-
all types of running. sumption during workouts.
 Choosing the Right Technology 27

The performance management software that is bundled with Suunto’s speed

and distance devices is called Suunto Training Manager. It allows you to graph
EPOC, training effect, oxygen consumption, pace, and other variables from a
specific workout or across any chosen period.
Suunto also sells packages for triathletes. Along with a heart-rate monitor
strap and foot pod, they include a pedaling cadence sensor and a spoke-mounted
sensor that delivers bike speed and distance data to the display watch, which is
worn during both cycling and running. This setup allows you to easily capture
data for a complete brick workout or triathlon event.

Timex
Timex introduced the first GPS-based speed and distance device for run-
ners in 2002, but they got an assist from Garmin, who supplied the actual
GPS unit. Timex contributed the wristwatch and the software. Runners and
triathletes, many of whom had wished for such a technology for years, were
enthralled by the Timex Ironman Speed + Distance, but it wasn’t perfect.
The flow of data from communication between the GPS and satellites was
easily interrupted by trees and cloud cover, and the GPS unit was cumber-
some and bulky.
The latest generation of Timex speed and distance devices exists in two lines:
Timex Speed + Distance (no heart-rate monitor) and Timex Ironman Triathlon
Bodylink (with integrated heart-rate monitor). These devices are significantly
more refined than the first generation of Timex devices. The GPS unit is about
half the size of the original, and the satellite connections are more reliable. In
our experience, Garmin’s own branded speed and distance devices have fewer
signal interruptions.
Timex’s specialty is watches, and their speed and distance display watches
are probably the best. They are light and stylish enough to be worn all day, they
have the “takes a lickin’ and keeps on tickin’” factor, and they have a better vari-
ety of information display options than other devices. You can even configure
your own custom display so that the watch shows the information you want to
see where you want to see it.
If you want to use your Timex speed and distance device for complete per-
formance management, you will need to purchase an optional data recorder,
a very small unit that you can clip to the waistband of your shorts, to collect
all of the navigation and heart-rate data from each run. It is from this unit
that you will download data onto your computer for use with Timex Trainer
software, which is compatible with PCs and Macs. This software has all of the
basic summary and graphing features plus a few unusual features, including
a Course Statistics page that allows you to inspect the gradient of hill climbs.
Triathletes may purchase a bike mount that allows them to use a single device
for all of their workouts.
28 The Runner’s Edge

Brand-Agnostic Performance
Management Programs
The performance management computer programs that come with speed and
distance devices work only with devices of the same brand. But there are a few
brand-agnostic programs that can be purchased separately. Some, such as PC
Coach, are software applications that you load onto your computer. Others,
such as Phys Farm, are Internet-based services. One performance management
program, Training Peaks WKO+ at www.trainingpeaks.com, works with all
speed and distance devices.
Training Peaks has cooperative relationships with most of the device manu-
facturers, who readily admit that WKO+ is far more powerful and sophisticated
than their own performance management offerings. Because of this fact, and
because you can create a basic Training Peaks account for free, we encourage
every runner who uses a speed and distance device to also use Training Peaks
WKO+, whether or not they use their device-specific performance management
application as well.
Training Peaks is an online platform of tools for endurance sport coaches and
athletes. The business began as an enhanced online training log that allowed
coaches and athletes to plan future training and record completed training. The
calendar (figure 2.1) remains the core of the platform, but it is quite a bit more
sophisticated today than it was when it first went live in 1999.
WKO+ is a software application that you can download onto your computer
from the Web site. It is compatible with both PCs and Macs. WKO+ mostly
duplicates the features that are available on the Web site, but the Web site has
valuable extras. Since Training Peaks WKO+ is brand agnostic, you can down-
load data from any speed and distance device to the program, and from there
upload it to your Training Peaks account. Training Peaks WKO+ also offers a
more sophisticated set of training data analysis features than the performance
management software applications that come with the devices.
The tables and graphs that can be generated with the application enable
runners to monitor and control their training workload. Training Peaks WKO+
automatically assigns a training stress score (TSS) to every run that is down-
loaded from a device. Then TSS from multiple runs are used to calculate your
chronic training load (CTL), or how hard you’ve been training over the past
several weeks, which quantifies your fitness level, and your acute training load
(ATL), or how hard you’ve been training over the past week, which quantifies
your fatigue level. The difference between your CTL and ATL is your training
stress balance (TSB), which quantifies your form, or how well you can expect
to be able to perform in your next run (fitness minus fatigue equals form). The
tables and charts produced through these calculations make it fairly easy to
assess how close you are to peak fitness, how quickly your workload is increas-
ing, whether you need more rest, and so forth.
 Choosing the Right Technology 29

Additional features allow you to analyze your training in other ways. For
example, a pace zone distribution chart provides insight into how balanced your
training is in the dimension of intensity, and a mean minimal pace graph plots
performance benchmarks, such as your 10 fastest 5-minute blocks of running
over the past 28 days, providing at-a-glance evidence of fitness improvements.
You also can create an infinite variety of customized charts and graphs to suit
your particular needs.
The planning tools are equally sophisticated. You may purchase complete
training plans from well-known coaches, which are loaded straight onto your
calendar, to create your own plan using a vast library of ready-made workouts
and even to design your own workouts from scratch. You also can trade work-
outs with other Training Peaks members. Your planned training is replaced with
actual training data as you download workout files from your device each day.
Training Peaks also offers highly advanced mapping features. You can export
route data from GPS-based devices to Google Earth, so you can see your entire
run from a bird’s-eye view. A feature called Ground Control provides instanta-
neous correction of the elevation information from your GPS-based device. This
enables Training Peaks to calculate a more accurate normalized graded pace,
which converts your actual pace on hill climbs and descents into an equivalent
pace for level ground. This, in turn, allows Training Peaks to generate a more
accurate training stress score for each run. Another handy feature is an eleva-
tion override, which allows you to manually cancel out elevation information
that you know to be inaccurate. To remove false elevation changes from your
workout file, use this feature whenever you run on a track.

Figure 2.1 Training Peaks personal account summary page.

Courtesy of TrainingPeaks (www.trainingpeaks.com).
30 The Runner’s Edge

The nutrition features of Training Peaks quickly add up the carbohydrate, fat,
protein, and calories in each meal and snack consumed, as well as daily totals.
There are also nutritionist-designed meal plans that you can purchase and load
onto your calendar to follow just as you do with training plans. These features
make it possible to monitor, analyze, and plan your nutrition as carefully as
you do your training. Meals and workouts sit side by side on your calendar, and
you can even view charts that compare the calories you take in through food
against those you burn at rest and in training to help you achieve and maintain
your optimal race weight (figure 2.1).

Getting Started
All too often, those who buy a suitable speed and distance device never tap into
its full potential or they get frustrated with simple problems like not being able
to get the darn thing started and end up tossing it into a drawer. To get the most
out of your speed and distance device, you need to learn how to properly use it.
Don’t worry—it’s not difficult to do. Here are the first five steps:
1. Read the user’s manual. The first step toward getting the most from your
speed and distance device is to read the directions. Perhaps this point sounds
too obvious to bear mentioning, but you’d be surprised at how many people
purchase a speed and distance device and then ignore the manual. Spend an hour
reading the manual. It’s worth every minute. With the manual in front of you,
move on to the following steps that will ensure your speed and distance device
doesn’t end up as another forgotten piece of workout gear at the back of a closet.
2. Try it on and turn it on. Follow the instructions to put on the compo-
nents of your device (strap the display watch onto your wrist, strap the GPS to
your upper arm, attach the foot pod to your shoes, and so on). Now turn on the
device and get your first pace reading. If your device is GPS based, you’ll have
to go outdoors to take this step.
If your device has an integrated heart-rate monitor, put that on too. To ensure
an accurate reading, wet the sensor pads on the chest strap before you put them
on. Adjust the chest strap around the ribs so it fits snugly, yet comfortably, just
underneath your breasts (or for men, right underneath the bulges of your chest
muscles) and center the sensor over your sternum. Many first-time users find
the chest strap uncomfortable. This is normal and will not last beyond the third
or fourth use. It’s not unlike getting accustomed to wearing glasses, braces, or
anything else not quite natural on the body. At first you’re maddeningly con-
scious of its feel, but soon enough you forget it’s there. We’ve never worked with
anyone who did not eventually get used to wearing the strap.
3. Try it out. Once you know how to wear your speed and distance device
and get pace and heart-rate readings, and you have a feel for the buttons, you’re
 Choosing the Right Technology 31

ready to begin working out with it. In your first workout with your speed and
distance device, we suggest you just put it on, do your normal workout, and
look at the display every few minutes without yet worrying about your target
pace or any other function. Simply get used to running with it.
4. Download your run data onto your computer. To do this, of course,
you will have to have first installed the performance management software that
came with your device. Don’t wait to accumulate a bunch of workouts on your
device before your first download. Analyzing your pace and heart-rate data is
just as important as using the device to monitor your pace and heart rate. You
don’t want to delay the process of getting comfortable with your software.
5. Explore your performance management software. After you’ve down-
loaded your first workout, start fiddling around with the various features of the
application to get a basic feel for how it works. Use any instructions included
with the software to facilitate this process. Don’t expect to absorb every feature
in your first sitting. Pace yourself and try to learn another analysis, mapping, or
planning feature each time you download another workout until you’ve mastered
your performance management software.
We recommend that you use not only the software that comes with your
device but Training Peaks WKO+ as well. This will allow you to take advan-
tage of the unique performance management tools in each. For example, if you
use a Suunto speed and distance device, you can use Suunto’s performance
management software to follow graphs of the training effect of your workouts
and Training Peaks WKO+ to study your acute and chronic training loads and
training stress balance. Once your manufacturer’s performance management
software is installed, you can easily download workout files from your device to
this software and Training Peaks WKO+ simultaneously. From there only one
more step is required to upload your workout file to your online training log.
Having a speed and distance device is better than not having one. Actually
using your device is better than not using it. And using it to actively manage your
running performance is better than using it merely to observe your runs. Very
few runners who do own speed and distance devices reach the level of active
performance management. That’s because digital performance management is
a skill that must be learned, just like effective training. But since the technol-
ogy is new, not many folks are qualified to teach computer-assisted running
performance management. We are! Are you ready to learn?
This page intentionally left blank.
 CHAPTER

3
Managing
Performance for
Optimal Results

P erformance management is a systematic approach to making the pursuit of

improved running performance more controllable and predictable. Speed
and distance devices and performance management software enable runners to
practice performance management more easily and more effectively.
The performance management process is divided into three steps. Step 1 is
monitoring, step 2 is analysis, and step 3 is planning. Planning leads to addi-
tional monitoring, and this additional monitoring leads to fresh analysis, so
performance management becomes a never-ending cycle. In chapters 4 through
6, we address these three steps of the performance management process indi-
vidually. This chapter provides an overview of performance management and
where technology fits into it.

Performance Management Edge

Improvement comes easily for beginning runners and for more experienced
runners who are out of shape as the result of a long layoff. When you first take
up regular training, almost anything you do will enhance your running per-
formance. As long as you avoid injury, you can train in any number of ways,
even somewhat chaotic and backward ways, and still gain speed and endurance,
because when your body is at its starting point on the path toward peak running
fitness, anything is better than nothing.
But these days don’t last long. Every step you take in your development
as a runner shortens the list of training options that will cause you to

33
34 The Runner’s Edge

improve further. In the beginning, you could improve for some time simply
by gradually increasing the volume of running you do at a moderate pace.
Eventually, though, you will reach a limit (only a temporary limit, if you
play your cards right) in the amount of moderate-paced running you can
do each week without becoming overtrained (that is, chronically fatigued)
or injured. At that point you could continue to improve by staying within
your volume limit and introducing a little high-intensity running into your
weekly schedule and then gradually increasing the amount of high-intensity
running you do.
Before long, however, you will reach another limit. Further improvement
may then require that you begin doing different types of high-intensity train-
ing—such as short, very fast intervals or longer, moderately fast intervals. When
you hit your next plateau, your only remaining option for improvement might
be finding effective ways to periodize your training—that is, to modulate your
training workload and change your main training emphasis over time. This last-
ditch strategy to enhance your development is a lot trickier than the preceding
strategies in the sense that you can’t always be sure that your body will respond
positively to any given periodization pattern that you try. In other words, at this
advanced stage of your development as a runner, the training process becomes
somewhat experimental.

Scientific Method
If the process of developing as a runner is an ongoing experiment, then maximiz-
ing your progress in this process requires that you become a sort of scientist. In
scientific disciplines such as physics and medicine, researchers discover truth
by creating hypotheses and then testing those hypotheses in carefully designed
experiments. As a runner, the truth you seek is knowledge about which specific
training practices make you faster and which ones stand in the way of making
you faster. The most effective way to gain such knowledge is to continuously
gather quantitative data about the amount and types of training you’re doing
and about how your fitness is changing in response to these variables. As you
gather such data, you can begin to observe apparent cause–effect relationships
between specific training practices and your fitness development. You can dis-
card ineffective practices and retain or emphasize effective ones on the basis of
these observations.
It’s actually very difficult to conduct truly valid scientific studies on the gen-
eral effectiveness of specific training practices because it’s hard to adequately
control the training of large groups of runners over extended periods. Some of
the best studies on the effects of specific training practices in runners have been
conducted by Esteve-Lanao, Foster, Sieler and Lucia (2007) at the University of
Madrid, Spain. A summary of one of these studies will give you a good sense
 Managing Performance for Optimal Results 35

of how the application of a scientific approach to training can yield knowledge

that has great practical value.
In a 2007 study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research,
these researchers divided 10 high-level male runners into two groups. At the
beginning of the study period, all 10 runners completed a 10.4-kilometer time
trial and their times were recorded. Over the next five months, the runners in
the two groups trained identically except for one key difference. The members
of one group did two threshold runs (or runs at approximately their one-hour
race pace) per week, while the members of the other group did just one. Their
total training mileage, speed training schedules, and strength training regimens
were the same. The only difference was that the members of one group did
more threshold running and less easy running than the members of the second
group. At the end of the study period, all 10 runners repeated the 10.4-kilometer
time trial. The members of the threshold group improved their time by 2:01,
on average, while those in the easy group improved by 2:37. Statistical analy-
ses revealed that such a large discrepancy was extremely unlikely to occur by
chance. Therefore the researchers concluded that a training program in which
81 percent of running is easy, 10.5 percent is done at threshold pace, and 8.5
percent is done at speeds exceeding race pace is more effective than an equal-
distance program in which only 67 percent of running is easy, 24.5 percent is
at threshold pace, and 8.5 percent is fast.
On the other hand, in a 2004 study by French exercise physiologist Veronique
Billat and colleagues, 11 experienced runners who had performed only slow,
long-distance runs and who had not experienced any recent training improve-
ments incorporated higher-intensity training at their maximal lactate steady
state velocity (MLSSv), which is slightly higher than lactate threshold speed,
two times. weekly for six weeks.
. After the conclusion of the six weeks, the
runners’ VO2max, speed at VO2max, lactate threshold speed, and MLSSv had
improved significantly. Further, the time to exhaustion at MLSSv increased 50
percent after the training period. These results clearly indicate that training at
or above the LT two times per week is better than strictly training by long, easy
runs alone.
Although there was some degree of individual variation in the extent to which
runners in the 2007 Spanish study improved over five months, no runner in
the threshold group improved as much as any runner in the easy group. On
the other hand, in the 2004 French study, as a group, the runners improved a
number of parameters in only six weeks, when no improvements had recently
been observed using only slow training. Therefore, it appears that some training
at or around the LT is of benefit, but the question is how much. Further, there
is a lot of variability in how individual runners respond to the same training.
For this reason, each runner must perform his or her own experiments to figure
out what works, what doesn’t, and how to improve.
36 The Runner’s Edge

The more controllable and predictable you can make the experiment of
training, the more you will improve. To master the experiment, you must
know what you’ve done and how it has affected you so that you can connect
cause and effect. That’s where technology can make a big difference. With a
speed and distance device that includes heart-rate monitoring capability and
performance management software, you can quantify your training and fitness
in more diverse and useful ways than you can by merely tracking your running
mileage and workout split times.

Numbers That Matter

Previously we noted that the training process is like a science experiment. It’s
also like a math equation, with input and output. The input is the work you
do, which can be viewed in objective terms (distance and time) or physiological
terms (such as training stress score). The output is the results of the work you
do. Technology is useful in relation to both sides of the training equation. Let’s
start with a look at the input side. Here are several of the more useful metrics
you can use to quantify your training. Others are discussed in later chapters.

Miles, or Kilometers, per Week

Miles per week (or kilometers per week, for those on the metric system) is the
most commonly used metric for training load. It is a perfectly legitimate mea-
surement of absolute work performed and has a variety of practical uses. For
example, collective evidence suggests that first-time marathon runners should
aim for a peak weekly training distance of at least 40 miles (64 km) to ensure
a successful marathon experience, while those reaching for the elite level must
exceed 100 miles per week in their heaviest training period.
Running mileage doesn’t tell the whole story, however. A mile can be run at
a variety of speeds. The faster it is run, of course, the more stressful it is on the
body. Thus, a 40-mile week of exclusively easy running is less stressful than a
40-mile week in which 15 miles are run at threshold pace and faster. Similarly,
an uphill mile run in 8 minutes is more stressful than a flat mile run in the
same time. So the most revealing possible metric for training workload would
be one that incorporated mileage, pace, and elevation gain and loss. Training
stress score (described a little later in this chapter) is one such metric.
A speed and distance device makes it easy to track training mileage. While
these devices are not 100 percent accurate, they are far more accurate than the
ballpark estimates we used to make when running on nonmeasured routes
before such devices existed. And since speed and distance devices also record
pace and—in many units—elevation change, they can also be used to produce
a training stress score for each run.
 Managing Performance for Optimal Results 37

It’s also worthwhile to track your increase in rate of weekly running mileage
during periods when your running mileage is increasing. Injuries and overtrain-
ing symptoms are most likely to occur during periods when you aggressively
increase your running mileage. Some runners are able to increase their mileage
faster than others without consequences, but all runners have their limits. The
maximum safe rate of increase in total running distance tends to stay relatively
consistent for each runner. By tracking your weekly distance consistently,
you can identify your own maximum safe rate of weekly increase in mileage.
Unfortunately, the only way to identify your true limit is by exceeding it and
getting injured or sick, but this is something that’s bound to happen to every
competitive runner sooner or later. Once you know your limit, you can use this
knowledge to ensure that you don’t exceed it again.
A speed and distance device supports this type of monitoring by enabling
you to accurately and consistently track your running mileage and record mile-
age data in your performance management software for later reference. For
most runners the maximum safe rate of increase in total distance is roughly 10
percent per week (for example, 20 miles this week, 22 miles next week, 24.2
miles the week after that).

Hours per Week

The amount of time you spend running in a week is another volume metric
that is closely related to total weekly running distance. Changes in the number
of hours and minutes you run each week will tend to follow changes in the
number of miles or kilometers you run each week in linear fashion, whether
upward or downward. Because there is a large degree of individual variation in
the average pace that runners maintain in training, however, there is an equally
large degree of variation in the relationship between total distance per week and
hours per week. For example, if José and Jane both ran 50 miles last week, but
José’s average pace is 7:00 per mile and Jane’s is 9:00 per mile, then there’s a
1-hour 40-minute difference in the amount of time José and Jane spent running
in that week (5 hours 50 minutes for José versus 7 hours 30 minutes for Jane).
Miles, or kilometers, per week is a truer measure of the absolute work per-
formed in a week of training, because it takes the same amount of work to run a
mile regardless of your pace. But hours per week may be a truer measure of the
relative stress that a given volume of running imposes on your body. And since
weekly running time is not an exact substitute for weekly running distance, it’s
not a bad idea to monitor both. If you do, it’s not unlikely that you will notice
time-based patterns in addition to mileage-based patterns. For example, you
might notice that you tend to show signs of overtraining when your running
time exceeds eight hours per week.
38 The Runner’s Edge

Time in Heart-Rate Zones

If your speed and distance device has heart-rate monitoring capability, the
software that comes with it may allow you to view a graph that shows the
distribution of time you’ve spent running in different heart-rate training zones
within a given run or over the past week or four weeks. This graph—especially
the longer, 28-day version—provides information about the intensity of your
training. In a well-designed and well-executed training program, this graph will
show a balance that is appropriate to your race distance and training phase. The
precise look of the graph will depend on how your heart-rate training zones are
defined, but in any case the graph should show that you do most of your running
at an easy pace, a moderate amount in your threshold range, and a small but
not insignificant amount at faster paces. Common errors that are identifiable in
graphs of time distribution in heart-rate zones include spending too much time
running in the high aerobic heart-rate range (between your moderate aerobic
and threshold heart-rate zones) and spending too little time running above your
threshold heart-rate range.
As you know already, we do not recommend that you train primarily by heart
rate. Your heart-rate training zones should merely reflect your heart rate within
your training pace zones, which serve as your primary means of monitoring
and controlling your running intensity.

Time in Pace Zones

A graph of your running time distribution in the various pace zones does the
same thing that a time in heart-rate zones graph does, only better. It gives you
a clear picture of how balanced your training is in terms of intensity. Lack of
adequate balance is one of the most common training errors among runners.
Once you understand how your time in pace zones graph should look given
your race focus and phase of training, you can look at this graph often to ensure
that your training maintains the right balance. To ensure the greatest accuracy
in this graph, be sure to adjust your pace zones as your fitness increases or
decreases. This is very easy to do with the pace zone index system described
fully in chapter 4.

Training Stress Score

The best tools to quantify how hard you’re training are those metrics that account
for both the volume and the intensity of your running. A new and powerful
tool of this sort is training stress score (TSS). As mentioned in chapter 1, this
new metric generates a score that quantifies the overall stressfulness of a run
by considering how much time you spend running at every pace level touched
during the run. The stressfulness of any given pace is determined in relation
 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
 XXIII
THE BUSINESS OF A MUSE
The decadence of literature began insensibly with the invention of
printing, and has been proceeding ever since. How far it has
proceeded and whether literature yet exists at all are questions
difficult if not impossible to answer at the present time, because of
the multitude of books. No living man can have more than a most
superficial knowledge of what is being done in what was formerly
the royalty and is now the communism of letters. A symphony
played in the midst of a battle would stand much the same chance
of being properly appreciated as would to-day a work of fine literary
worth sent forth in the midst of the innumerous publications of the
age.
Men write, however, more than ever. There is perhaps a difference,
in that where men of the elder day deluded themselves or hoped to
delude others with impressive talk about art and fame and other
now obsolete antiquities, the modern author sets before him definite
and desirable prizes in the shape of money and of notoriety which
has money's worth. The muse of these days is confronted on the
door of the author with a stern "No admittance except on business,"
and she is not allowed to enter unless she bring her check-book with
her. The ideal of art is to-day set down in figures and posted by
bankers' clerks. Men once foolishly tried to live to write; now they
write to live. If men seek for Pegasus it is with a view to getting a
patent on him as a flying-machine; and the really progressive
modern author has much the same view of life as the rag-picker,
that of collecting any sort of scraps that may be sold in the market.
Dick Fairfield had much the attitude of other writers of his day and
generation. He had set out to make a living by writing, because he
liked it, and because, in provincial Boston at least, there is still a
certain sense of distinction attached to the profession of letters, a
legacy from the time when the public still respected art. Fairfield had
been for years struggling to get a foothold of reputation sufficiently
secure to enable him to stretch more vigorously after the prizes of
modern literary life, where notoriety commands a price higher than
genius could hope for. He had done a good deal of hack work, of
which that which he liked least, yet which had perhaps as a matter
of training been best for him, had been the rewriting of manuscripts
for ambitious authors. A bureau which undertakes for a
compensation to mend crude work, to infuse into the products of
undisciplined imagination or incompetency that popular element
which shall make a work sell, had employed Fairfield to reconstruct
novels which dealt with society. In this capacity he had made over a
couple of flimsy stories of which Mrs. Croydon claimed the credit, on
the strength of having set down the first draught from events which
had happened within her own knowledge. So little of the original
remained in the published version, it may be noted in passing, that
she might have been puzzled to recognize her own bantlings. The
success of these books had given Dick courage to attempt a society
novel for himself; and by one of those lucky and inexplicable flukes
of fortune, "Love in a Cloud" had gained at least the success of
immediate popularity.
Fairfield had published the novel anonymously partly from modesty,
partly from a business sense that it was better to have his name
clear than associated with a failure. He had been deterred from
acknowledging the book after its success by the eagerness with
which the public had set upon his characters and identified each
with some well known person. If the scene of a novel be laid in a
provincial city its characters must all be identified. That is the first
intellectual duty of the readers of fiction. To look at a novel from a
critical point of view is no longer in the least a thing about which any
reader need concern himself; but it would be an omission
unpardonably stupid were he to remain unacquainted with some
original under the disguise of every character. A single detail is
sufficient for identification. If a man in a tale have a wart on his
nose, the intelligent reader should not rest until he think of a dweller
in the town whose countenance is thus adorned. That single
particular must thenceforth be held to decide the matter. If the man
in the novel and the man in the flesh differ in every other particular,
physical and mental, that is to be held as the cunning effort of the
writer to disguise his real model. The wart decides it, and the more
widely the copy departs in other characteristics from the chosen
person the more evident is it that the novelist did not wish his
original to be known. The more striking therefore is the shrewdness
which has penetrated the mystery. The reader soddens in the
consciousness of his own penetration as the sardine, equally
headless, soaks in oil. Fairfield was now waiting for this folly of
identification to pass before he gave his name to the novel, and in
the mean time he was tasting the delight of a first literary success
where the pecuniary returns allowed his vanity to glow without
rebuke from his conscience.
Fairfield was surprised, one morning not long after the polo game,
by receiving a call from Mrs. Croydon. He knew her slightly, having
met her now and then in society, and his belief that she was entirely
ignorant of his share in her books might naturally invest her with a
peculiar interest. She was a Western woman who had lived in the
East but a few years, and her blunders in regard to Eastern society
as they appeared in her original manuscripts had given him a good
deal of quiet amusement. Why she should now have taken it upon
herself to come to his chambers could only become evident by her
own explanation.
"You are probably surprised to see me here, Mr. Fairfield," she
began, settling herself in a chair with the usual ruffling of rag-tag-
and-bobbery without which she never seemed able to move.
"I naturally should not have been vain enough to foresee that I
should have such an honor," he responded, with his most elaborate
society manner.
She smirked, and nodded.
"That is very pretty," she said. "Well, I'll tell you at once, not to keep
you in suspense. I came on business."
"Business?" repeated he.
"Yes, business. You see, I have just come from the Cosmopolitan
Literary Bureau."
Fairfield did not look pleased. He had kept his connection with that
factory of hack-work a secret, and no man likes to be reminded of
unpleasant necessities.
"They have told me," she went on, "that you revised the manuscript
of my novels. I must say that you have done it very satisfactorily. We
women of society are so occupied that it is impossible for us to
attend to all that mere detail work, and it is a great relief to have it
so well done."
Fairfield bowed stiffly.
"I am glad that you were satisfied," he replied; "but it is a violation
of confidence on the part of the bureau."
"Oh, you are one of us now," Mrs. Croydon observed with gracious
condescension. "It isn't as if they had told anybody else. They told
me, you see, that you wrote 'Love in a Cloud.'"
"That is a greater violation of confidence still," Fairfield responded.
"Indeed, it was a most un-gentlemanly thing of Mr. Cutliff. He only
knew it because a stupid errand boy carried him the manuscript by
mistake. He had no right to tell that. I shall give him my opinion of
his conduct."
Mrs. Croydon accomplished a small whirlwind of ribbon ends, and
waved her plump hand in remonstrance.
"Oh, I beg you won't," she protested. "It will get me into trouble if
you do. He especially told me not to let you know."
Fairfield smiled rather sardonically.
"The man who betrays a confidence is always foolish enough to
suppose his confidence will be sacred. I think this is an outrageous
breach of good faith on Mr. Cutliff's part."
Mrs. Croydon gave a hitch forward as if she were trying to bring her
chair closer to that of Fairfield.
"As I was saying," she remarked, "we society women have really so
little time to give to literature, and literature needs just our touch so
much, that it has been especially gratifying to find one that could
carry out my ideas so well."
The young man began to regard her with a new expression in his
face. As a literary woman she should have recognized the look, the
expression which tells of the author on the scent of material.
Whether Fairfield ever tried his hand at painting Mrs. Croydon or not,
that look would have made it plain to any well-trained fellow worker
that her peculiarities tempted his literary sense. Any professional
writer who listens with that gleam in his eyes is inevitably examining
what is said, the manner of its saying, the person who is speaking,
in the hope that here he has a subject for his pen; he is asking
himself if the reality is too absurd to be credible; how much short of
the extravagance of the original he must come to keep within the
bounds of seeming probability. Fairfield was confronted with a
subject which could not be handled frankly and truthfully. Nobody
would believe the tone of the woman or her remarks to be anything
but a foolish exaggeration; if she had had the genuine creative
instinct, the power of analysis, the recognition of human
peculiarities, Mrs. Croydon must have seen in his evident
preoccupation the indication that he was deliberating how far toward
the truth it would in fiction be possible to go.
"It is very kind of you," he murmured vaguely.
"Oh, don't mention it," responded she, more graciously than ever.
"You are really one of us now, as I said; and I always feel strongly
the ties of the literary guild."
"The guild owes you a great deal," Fairfield observed blandly.
Mrs. Croydon waved her hand engagingly in return for this
compliment, incidentally with a waving of various adornments of her
raiment which gave her the appearance in little of an army with
banners.
"I didn't come just for compliments," she observed with much
sweetness. "I am a business woman, and I know how to come to
the point. My father left me to manage my own property, and so I've
had a good deal of experience. When I see how women wander
round a thing without being able to get at it, it makes me ashamed
of them all. I don't wonder that men make fun of them."
"You are hard on your sex."
"Oh, no harder than they deserve. Why, in Chicago there are a lot of
women that do business in one way or another, and I never could
abide 'em. I never could get on with them, it was so hard to pin
them down."
"I readily understand how annoying it must have been," Fairfield
observed with entire gravity. "Did you say that you had business with
me?"
"Yes," she answered. "I suppose that I might have written, but there
are some things that are so much better arranged by word of
mouth. Don't you think so?"
"Oh, there's no doubt of it."
"Besides," she went on, "I wanted to tell you how much I like your
work, and it isn't easy to express those things on paper."
It would be interesting to know whether to Fairfield at that moment
occurred the almost inevitable reflection that for Mrs. Croydon it was
hard, if her manuscripts were the test, to express anything on paper.
"You are entirely right," he said politely. "It is easy enough to put
facts into words, but when it comes to feelings such as you express,
it is different, of course."
He confided to Jack Neligage later that he wondered if this were not
too bold a flout, but Mrs. Croydon received it as graciously as
possible.
"There is so complete a difference," she observed with an
irrelevance rather startling, "between the mental atmosphere in
Boston and that I was accustomed to in Chicago. Here there is a sort
of—I don't know that I can express it exactly; it's part of an older
civilization, I suppose; but I don't think it pays so well as what we
have in Chicago."
"Pays so well?" he repeated. "I don't think I understand."
"It doesn't sell so well in a book," she explained. "I thought that it
would be better business to write stories of the East for the West to
buy; but I've about made up my mind that it'll be money in my
pocket to write of the West for the eastern market."
Fairfield smiled under his big mustache, playing with a paper-knife.
"Pardon my mentioning it," he said, "but I thought you wrote for
fame, and not for money."
"Oh, I don't write for money, I assure you; but I was brought up to
be a business woman, and if I'm going to write books somebody
ought to pay for them. Now I wanted to ask you what you will sell
me your part in 'Love in a Cloud' for."
Whether this sudden introduction of her business or the nature of it
when introduced were the more startling it might have been hard to
determine. Certain it is that Fairfield started, and stared at his visitor
as if he doubted his ears.
"My part of it?" he exclaimed. "Why, I wrote it."
"Yes," she returned easily, "but so many persons have supposed it to
be mine, that it is extremely awkward to deny it; and you have
become my collaborateur, of course, by writing on the other novels."
"I hadn't realized that," Dick returned with a smile.
"You've put so much of your style into my other books," she
pursued, "that it's made people attribute 'Love in a Cloud' to me,
and I think you are bound now not to go back on me. I don't know
as you see it as I do, but it seems to me that since you took the
liberty of changing so much in my other stories you ought to be
willing to bear the consequences of it, especially as I'm willing to pay
you well."
"But as long as you didn't write the book," Dick observed, "I should
think you'd feel rather queer to have it said you did."
"I've thought of that," Mrs. Croydon said, nodding, with a flutter of
silken tags, "but I reason that the ideas are so much my own, and
the book is so exactly what I would have written if social duties
hadn't prevented, that that ought not to count. The fact that so
many folks think I wrote it shows that I might have written it."
"But after all you didn't write it," Fairfield objected. "That seems to
make it awkward."
"Why, of course it would have been better if I had given you a
sketch of it," Mrs. Croydon returned, apparently entirely unmoved;
"but then of course you got so much of the spirit of 'Love in a Cloud'
out of my other books—"
This was perhaps more than any author could be expected to
endure, and least of all a young author in the discussion of his first
novel.
"Why, how can you say that?" he demanded indignantly.
"Do you suppose," she questioned with a benign and patronizing
smile, "that so many persons would have taken your book for mine
in the first place if you hadn't imitated me or taken ideas from my
other books?"
Dick sprang to his feet, and then sat down, controlling himself.
"Well," he said coldly, "it makes no difference. It is too late to do
anything about it now. An edition of 'Love in a Cloud' with my name
on the title-page comes out next Wednesday. If folks say too much
about the resemblance to your books, I can confess, I suppose, my
part in the others."
She turned upon him with a burst of surprise and indignation which
set all her ribbon-ends waving in protest.
"That," she said, "is a professional secret. No man of honor would
tell it."
She rose as she spoke, her face full of indignation.
"You have not treated me fairly," she said bitterly. "You must have
seen that the book was attributed to me, and you knew the
connection between 'Love in a Cloud' and my other books—"
"Other books!" exclaimed Dick.
Mrs. Croydon waved him into silence with a magnificent gesture, but
beyond that took no notice of his words.
"You saw how everybody looked at me that day at Mrs. Harbinger's,"
she went on. "If you were going to give your name to the book why
didn't you do it then?"
"I didn't think of you at all," was his answer. "I was too much
amused in seeing that absurd Barnstable make a fool of himself with
Count Shimbowski. Did you know that the Count actually challenged
him?"
Wrath of celestial goddesses darkened the face of Mrs. Croydon as a
white squall blackens the face of the sky. Her eyes glared with an
expression as fierce if not as bright as the lightning.
"What do you say?" she screamed. "Challenge my husband?"
"Your husband!" ejaculated Dick, a staring statue of surprise.
"Yes, my husband," she repeated vehemently. "He didn't make a fool
of himself that day! A man can't come to the defense of a woman
but you men sneer at him. Do you mean that that beastly foreign
ape dared to challenge him for that? I'd like to give him my opinion
of him!"
When a man finds himself entertaining a wildcat unawares he should
either expel the beast or himself take safety in flight. Dick could
apparently do neither. He stood speechless, gazing at the woman
before him, who seemed to be waxing in fury with every moment
and every word. She swept across the short space between them in
a perfect hurricane of streamers, and almost shook her fists in his
face.
"I understand it all now," she said. "You were in it from the
beginning! I suppose that when you worked on my books you took
the trouble to find out about me, and that's where your material
came from for your precious 'Love in a Cloud.' Oh, my husband will
deal with you!"
Fairfield looked disconcerted enough, as well he might, confronted
with a woman who was apparently so carried away by anger as to
have lost all control of herself.
"Mrs. Croydon," he said, with a coldness and a dignity which could
not but impress her, "I give you my word that I never knew anything
about your history. That was none of my business."
"Of course it was none of your business!" she cried. "That's just
what makes it so impertinent of you to be meddling with my affairs!"
Fairfield regarded her rather wildly.
"Sit down, please," he said beseechingly. "You mustn't talk so, Mrs.
Croydon. Of course I haven't been meddling with your affairs, and—"
"And not to have the courage to say a word to prevent my husband's
being dragged into a duel with that foreigner! Oh, it does seem as if
I couldn't express my opinion of you, Mr. Fairfield!"
"My dear Mrs. Croydon—"
"And as for Erastus Barnstable," she rushed on to say, "he's quick-
tempered, and eccentric, and obstinate, and as dull as a post; he
never understood me, but he always meant well; and I won't have
him abused."
"I hadn't any idea of abusing him," Dick pleaded humbly. "Really,
you are talking in an extraordinary fashion."
She stopped and glared at him as if with some gleam of returning
reason. Her face was crimson, and her breath came quickly. Women
of society outside of their own homes so seldom indulge in the
luxury of an unbecoming rage that Dick had perhaps never before
seen such a display. Any well-bred lady knows how to restrain
herself within the bounds of personal decorum, and to be the more
effective by preserving some appearance of calmness. Mrs. Croydon
had evidently lacked in her youth the elevating influence of society
where good manners are morals. It was interesting for Dick, but too
extravagantly out of the common to be of use to him professionally.
"I hope you are proud of your politeness this morning," Mrs.
Croydon ended by saying; and without more adieu she fluttered
tumultuously to the door.
 XXIV
THE MISCHIEF OF A CAD
The fierce light of publicity which nowadays beats upon society has
greatly lessened the picturesqueness of life. There is no longer the
dusk favorable to crime, and the man who wishes to be wicked, if
careful of his social standing, is constantly obliged to be content with
mere folly, or, if desperate, with meanness. It is true that from time
to time there are still those, even in the most exclusive circles, who
are guilty of acts genuinely criminal, but these are not, as a rule,
regarded as being in good form. The days when the Borgias invited
their enemies to dinner for the express purpose of poisoning them,
or visited nobles rich in money or in beautiful wives and daughters
with the amiable intent to rob them of these treasures, are over,
apparently forever. In the sixteenth century—to name a time typical
—success made an excuse more than adequate for any moral
obliquity; and the result is that the age still serves thrillingly the
romantic dramatist or novel-writer. To-day success is held more than
to justify iniquity in politics or commerce, but the social world still
keeps up some pretext of not approving. There is in the best society
really a good deal of hesitation about inviting to dinner a man who
has murdered his grandmother or run away with the wife of his
friend. Society is of course not too austere in this respect; it strives
to be reasonable, and it recognizes the principle that every
transaction is to be judged by the laws of its own class. In the
financial world, for instance, conscience is regulated by the stock
market, and society assumes that if a crime has been committed for
the sake of money its culpability depends chiefly upon the smallness
of the amount actually secured. Conservative minds, however, still
object to the social recognition of a man who has notoriously and
scandalously broken the commandments. He who has not the skill or
the good taste to display the fruits of his wickedness without
allowing the process by which they were obtained to be known, is
looked at askance by these prudish souls. In all this state of things is
great loss to the romancer, and not a little disadvantage to bold and
adventurous spirits. Were the latter but allowed the freedom which
was enjoyed by their forerunners of the sixteenth century, they
would do much to relieve the tedium under which to-day the best
society languishes.
This tendency of the age toward the suppression of violent and
romantic transgressions in good society was undoubtedly largely
responsible for the course taken by Sibley Langdon. Foiled in his
plan of blackmailing Mrs. Neligage into being his companion on a
European tour, he attempted revenge in a way so petty that even
the modern novelist, who stops at nothing, would have regarded the
thing as beneath invention.
Mr. Langdon had sent Mrs. Neligage her canceled note, with a
floridly worded epistle declaring that its real value, though paid, was
lost to him, since it lay in her signature and not in the money which
the document represented. This being done, he had called once or
twice, but the ignominy of living at the top of a speaking-tube
carries with it the advantage of power to escape unwelcome callers,
and he never found Mrs. Neligage at home. When they met in
society Mrs. Neligage treated him with exactly the right shade of
coolness. She did not give rise to any gossip. The infallible intuition
of her fellow women easily discovered, of course, that there was an
end of the old intimacy between the widow and Mr. Langdon, but
nobody had the satisfaction of being able to perceive anything of the
nature of a quarrel.
They met one evening at a dinner given by Mrs. Chauncy Wilson.
The dinner was not large. There were Mr. and Mrs. Frostwinch, Mrs.
Neligage, Alice Endicott, Count Shimbowski, and Mr. Langdon. The
company was somewhat oddly assorted, but everybody understood
that Mrs. Wilson did as she pleased, leaving social considerations to
take care of themselves. She had promised Miss Wentstile, who still
clung to the idea of marrying Alice to the Count, that she would ask
the pair to dinner; and having done so, she selected her other
guests by some principle of choice known only to herself.
The dinner passed off without especial incident. The Count took in
Alice, and was by her treated with a cool ease which showed that
she had come to regard him as of no consequence whatever. She
chatted with him pleasantly enough at the proper intervals, but more
of her attention was given to Mr. Frostwinch, her neighbor on the
other side. She would never talk with the Count in French, although
she spoke that tongue with ease, and his wooing, such as it was,
had to be carried on in his joint-broken English. The engagement of
May Calthorpe and Dick Fairfield, just announced, and the
appearance of "Love in a Cloud" with the author's name on the title-
page, were the chief subjects of conversation. The company were
seated at a round table, so that the talk was for the most part
general, and each person had something to add to the little ball of
silken-fibred gossip as it rolled about. Mr. Frostwinch was May's
guardian, and a man of ideas too old-fashioned to discuss his ward
or her affairs in any but the most general way; yet even he did now
and then add a word or a hint.
"They say," Mrs. Wilson observed, "that there's some kind of a
romantic story behind the engagement. Mrs. Neligage, you ought to
know—is it true that Richard Fairfield got Jack to go and propose for
him?"
"If he did," was the answer, "neither you nor I will ever know it from
Jack. He's the worst to get anything out of that I ever knew. I think
he has some sort of a trap-door in his memory to drop things
through when he doesn't want to tell them. I believe he contrives to
forget them himself."
"You can't conceive of his holding them if he did remember them, I
suppose," chuckled Dr. Wilson.
"Of course he couldn't. No mortal could."
"That's as bad as my husband," observed Mrs. Frostwinch, with a
billowy motion of her neck, a movement characteristic and perhaps
the result of unconscious cerebration induced by a secret knowledge
that her neck was too long. "I tried to get out of him what Mr.
Fairfield said when he came to see him about May; and I give you
my word that after I'd worn myself to shreds trying to beguile him, I
was no wiser than before."
"I tell you so entirely all my own secrets, Anna," her husband
answered, "that you might let me keep those of other people."
"Indeed, I can't help your keeping them," was her reply. "That's
what I complain of. If I only had a choice in the matter, I shouldn't
mind."
"If Jack Neligage is in the way of proposing," Langdon observed in
his deliberate manner, "I should think he'd do it for himself."
"Oh, bless you," Mrs. Neligage responded quickly, "Jack can't afford
to marry. I've brought him up better than to suppose he could."
"Happy the man that has so wise a mother," was Langdon's
comment.
"If you don't believe in marriages without money, Mrs. Neligage,"
asked Mrs. Wilson, "what do you think of Ethel Mott and Thayer
Kent?"
"Just think of their marrying on nothing, and going out to live on a
cattle ranch," put in Mrs. Frostwinch. "I wonder if Ethel will have to
milk?"
Dr. Wilson gave a laugh full of amusement.
"They don't milk on cattle ranches," he corrected. "She may have to
mount a horse and help at a round-up, though."
"Well, if she likes that kind of a burial," Mrs. Neligage said, "it's her
own affair, I suppose. I'd rather be cremated."
"Oh, it isn't as bad as that," Mr. Frostwinch observed genially.
"They'll have a piano, and that means some sort of civilization."
"I suppose she'll play the ranz des vaches on the piano," Mrs. Wilson
laughed.
"Of course it's madness," Langdon observed, "but they'll like it for a
while. I can't understand, though, how Miss Mott can be so foolish. I
always supposed she was rather a sensible girl."
"Does this prove that she isn't?" asked Alice.
"Don't you think a girl that leaves civilization, and goes to live in the
wilderness just to follow a man, shows a lack of cleverness?"
The seriousness of the tone in which Alice had asked her question
had drawn all eyes in her direction, and it might easily be that the
knowledge of the interest which she was supposed to have in
penniless Jack Neligage would in any case have given to her words
especial mark.
"That depends on what life is for," Alice answered now, in her low,
even voice. "If she is happier with Thayer Kent on a cattle ranch
than she would be anywhere else without him, I think she shows the
best kind of sense."
"But think what a stupid life she'll lead," Langdon persisted. "She
doesn't know what she's giving up."
"Eet ees très romanesque," declared the Count, "but eet weel to be
triste. Weell she truthfully ride de cow?"
Politely veiled laughter greeted this sally, except from Dr. Wilson,
who burst into an open guffaw.
"She'll be worth seeing if she does!" he ejaculated.
Mrs. Frostwinch bent toward Alice with undulating neck.
"You are romantic, of course, Alice," she remarked, "and you look at
it like a girl. It's very charming to be above matter-of-fact
considerations; but when the edge is worn off—"
She sighed, and shook her head as if she were deeply versed in all
the misfortunes resulting from an impecunious match; her manner
being, of course, the more effective from the fact that everybody
knew that she had never been able to spend her income.
"But what is life for?" Alice said with heightened color. "If people are
happy together, I don't believe that other things matter so much."
"For my part," Mrs. Wilson declared, "I think it will be stunning! I
wish I were going out to live on a ranch myself, and ride a cow, as
the Count says. Chauncy, why don't we buy a ranch? Think how I'd
look on cow-back!"
She gave the signal to rise, and the ladies departed to the drawing-
room, where they talked of many things and of nothing until the
gentlemen appeared. Mr. Langdon placed himself so that he faced
Mrs. Neligage across the little circle in which the company chanced
to arrange itself.
"We've been talking of adventures," he said, "and Mr. Frostwinch
says that nobody has any nowadays."
"I only said that they were uncommon," corrected Mr. Frostwinch.
"Of course men do have them now and then, but not very often."
"Men! Yes, they have them," Mrs. Wilson declared; "but there's no
chance nowadays for us poor women. We never get within sight of
anything out of the common."
"You're enough out of the common to do without it, Elsie," laughed
her husband.
"Madame Weelson ees an adventure eetself," the Count put in
gallantly.
Mr. Langdon raised his head deliberately, and looked over to Mrs.
Neligage.
"You could tell them differently, Mrs. Neligage," he said. "Your
experience at Monte Carlo, now; that was far enough out of the
common."
Her color went suddenly, but she met his eyes firmly enough.
"My adventures?" she returned. "I never had an adventure. I'm too
commonplace a person for that."
"You don't do yourself justice," Langdon rejoined. "You haven't any
idea how picturesque you were that night."
Telepathy may or may not be established on a scientific basis, but it
is certain that there exists some occult power in virtue of which
intelligence spreads without tangible means of communication.
There was nothing in the light, even tones of Langdon to convey
more intimation than did his words that mischief was afoot, yet over
the group in Mrs. Wilson's drawing-room came an air of intentness,
of alert suspense. No observer could have failed to perceive the
general feeling, the perception that Langdon was preparing for some
unusual stroke. The atmosphere grew electric. Mr. Frostwinch and
his wife became a shade more grave than was their wont. They were
both rather proper folk, and proper people are obliged to be
continually watching for indecorums, lest before they are aware their
propriety have its fine bloom brushed away. The Count moved
uneasily in his chair. The unpleasant doubts to which he had been
exposed as to how his own past would affect a Boston public might
have made him the more sympathetic with Mrs. Neligage, and the
fact that he had seen her at the tables at Monte Carlo could hardly
fail to add for him a peculiar vividness to Langdon's words. Doctor
and Mrs. Wilson were both openly eager. Alice watched Mrs.
Neligage intently, while the widow faced Langdon with growing
pallor.
"Madame Neleegaze ees all teemes de peecture," declared Count
Shimbowski gallantly. "When more one teeme eet ees de oder?"
"She was more picturesque that time than another," laughed
Langdon, by some amazing perception getting at the Count's
meaning. "I'm going to tell it, Mrs. Neligage, just to show what you
are capable of. I never admired anything more than I did your pluck
that night. It's nonsense to say that women have less grit than
men."
"Less grit!" cried Mrs. Wilson. "They have a hundred times more. If
men had the spunk of women or women had the strength of men—"
"Then amen to the world!" broke in her husband. "Don't interrupt. I
want to hear Langdon's story."
Alice Endicott had thus far said nothing, but as Langdon smiled as if
to himself, and parted his lips to begin, she stopped him.
"No," she said, "he shan't tell it. If it is Mrs. Neligage's adventure,
she shall tell it herself."
Mrs. Neligage flashed a look of instant comprehension, of gratitude,
to Alice, and the color came back into her cheeks. She had been half
cowering before the possibility of what Langdon might be intending
to say, but this chance of taking matters into her own hands recalled
all her self-command. Her eyes brightened, and she lifted her head.
"It isn't much to tell," she began, "and it isn't at all to my credit."
"I protest," interpolated Langdon. "Of course she won't tell a story
about herself for half its worth."
"Be quiet," Alice commanded.
The eyes of all had been turned toward Mrs. Neligage at her last
words, but now everybody looked at Alice. It was not common to
see her take this air of really meaning to dominate. In her manner
was a faint hint of the commanding manner of her aunt, although
without any trace of Miss Wentstile's arrogance. She was entirely
cool and self-possessed, although her color was somewhat brighter
than usual. The words that had been spoken were little, yet the
hearer heard behind them the conflict between herself and Langdon.
"I am not to be put down so," he persisted. "I don't care much
about telling that particular story, but I can't allow you to bully me
so, Miss Endicott."
"Go on, Mrs. Neligage, please," Alice said, quite as if she were
mistress of ceremonies, and entirely ignoring Langdon's words
except for a faint smile toward him.
"My adventure, as Mr. Langdon is pleased to call it," Mrs. Neligage
said, "is only a thing I'm ashamed of. He is trying to make me
confess my sins in public, apparently. He came on me one night
playing at Monte Carlo when I lost a lot of money. He declares he
watched me an hour before I saw him, but as I didn't play more
than half that time—"
"I told you she would spoil the story," interrupted Langdon, "I—"
"You shall not interrupt, Mr. Langdon," Alice said, as evenly and as
commandingly as before.
"Oh, everybody he play at Monte Carlo," put in the Count. "Not to
play, one have not been dere."
"I've played," Mrs. Wilson responded. "I think it's the greatest fun in
the world. Did you win, Mrs. Neligage?"
"Win, my dear," returned the widow, who had recovered perfectly
her self-command; "I lost all that I possessed and most that I didn't.
I wonder I ever got out of the place. The truth is that I had to
borrow from Mr. Langdon to tide me over till I could raise funds. Was
that what you wanted to tell, Mr. Langdon? You were the real hero to
lend it to me, for I might have gone to playing again, and lost that
too."
Langdon was visibly disconcerted. To have the tables so turned that
it seemed as if he were seeking a chance to exploit his own good
deeds left him at the mercy of the widow. Mrs. Neligage had told in
a way everything except the matter of the necklace, and no man
with any pretense of being a gentleman could drag that in now. It
might have been slid picturesquely into the original story, whether
that were or were not Mr. Langdon's intention; but now it was too
late.
"I don't see where the pluck came in," pronounced Dr. Wilson.
"Oh, I suppose that was the stupid way in which I kept on losing,"
Mrs. Neligage explained. "I call it perfect folly."
"Again I say that I knew she'd spoil the story," Langdon said with a
smile.
The announcement of carriages, and the departure of the
Frostwinches brought the talk to an end. When Mrs. Neligage had
said good-night and was leaving the drawing-room, Langdon stood
at the door.
"You got out of that well," he said.
She gave him a look which should have withered him.
"It is a brave man that tries to blacken a woman's name," she
answered; and went on her way.
In the dressing-room was Alice, who had gone a moment before.
Mrs. Neligage went up to her and took her by the arms.
"How did you know that I needed to have a plank thrown to me?"
she demanded. "Did I show it so much?"
Alice flushed and smiled.
"If I must tell the truth," she answered, "you looked just as I saw
Jack look once in a hard place."
Mrs. Neligage laughed, and kissed her.
"Then it was Jack's mother you wanted to help. You are an angel
anyhow. I had really lost my head. The story was horrid, and I knew
he'd tell it or hint it. It wasn't so bad," she added, as Alice half
shrank back, "but that I'll tell it to you some time. Jack knows it."
 XXV
THE WAKING OF A SPINSTER
Miss Wentstile was as accustomed to having her way as the sun is to
rising. She had made up her mind that Alice was to marry Count
Shimbowski, and what was more, she had made her intention
perfectly plain to her friends. It is easily to be understood that her
temper was a good deal tried when it became evident that she could
not force her niece to yield. Miss Wentstile commanded, she
remonstrated, she tried to carry her will with a high hand by
assuming that Alice was betrothed, and she found herself in the end
utterly foiled.
"Then you mean to disobey me entirely," she said to Alice one day.
"I have tried all my life to do what you wanted, Aunt Sarah," was the
answer, "but this I can't do."
"You could do it if you chose."
Alice was silent; and to remain silent when one should offer some
sort of a remark that may be disputed or found fault with or turned
into ridicule is one of the most odious forms of insubordination.
"Why don't you speak?" demanded Miss Wentstile sharply. "Haven't I
done enough for you to be able to get a civil answer out of you?"
"What is there for me to say more, Aunt Sarah?"
"You ought to say that you would not vex and disobey me any
more," declared her Aunt. "Here I have told everybody that I should
pass next summer at the Count's ancestral castle in Hungary, and
how can I if you won't marry him?"
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