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Lactate Threshold 101: What You Should Know

Also, portable lactate testing meters are widely available now and run between $100 to $500, depending on the type of meter. Certain wearable technology, a new trend in the running community, can even have LT testing capabilities.

Assessing your own LT with a portable meter can be an effective way of seeing how your LT progresses throughout the year.

How to Improve LT

There are traditionally three main attack angles to improve your anaerobic threshold: long intervals with short recovery time, longer fartleks and traditional tempo runs.

Long intervals are what most runners are familiar with. Running a standard 1600 meters around the track (equivalent to one mile) three to five times with shorter recovery is a generation-old training plan used by beginners and pros alike. 

Tempo fartleks—and even shorter interval runs with very short rest in between—are also ways you can move your threshold forward throughout the year. 

LT for "Dummies"

As previously mentioned, most athletes can maintain a tempo at or near their anaerobic threshold for 20 minutes to an hour, the latter more common for highly trained runners with significant aerobic backgrounds. A runner's LT is generally five to 15 seconds per mile slower than their current 10K race fitness.

While access to a laboratory-based test or a personal lactate meter can indeed provide other useful information on top of this, the overwhelming majority of long-distance runners need to know only these ballpark performance parameters to implement them properly and see a steady improvement of LT.

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About the Author

Pete Rea

ZAP Fitness is a Reebok-sponsored non-profit facility that supports post-collegiate distance runners in Blowing Rock, North Carolina. ZAP puts on adult running camps during the summer and is available for retreats all year. The facility has a state-of-the-art weight room, exercise science lab for testing, and a 24-bed lodge. Coaches at the facility include 2-time Olympic trials qualifier Zika Rea, 2007 USATF National XC Champion Ryan Warrenburg, and head coach Pete Rea. For more information, go to zapfitness.com or call 828-295-6198.
ZAP Fitness is a Reebok-sponsored non-profit facility that supports post-collegiate distance runners in Blowing Rock, North Carolina. ZAP puts on adult running camps during the summer and is available for retreats all year. The facility has a state-of-the-art weight room, exercise science lab for testing, and a 24-bed lodge. Coaches at the facility include 2-time Olympic trials qualifier Zika Rea, 2007 USATF National XC Champion Ryan Warrenburg, and head coach Pete Rea. For more information, go to zapfitness.com or call 828-295-6198.

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