Lactate Testing - What is it?

Lactate testing is a test that a coach can use on his athletes to find out their correct heart rate and pace training zones. 

Everyone produces lactic acid in the blood and the easiest way to describe this process while running is as follows -

As you start to jog at a comfortable pace you are building up lactic acid and clearing it at a similar rate. You run a bit fast and you clear it a bit faster. There comes a point in your blood where you accumulate lactic acid and your body can't clear it as sufficiently as it did at the slower paces. I like to call it 'flooding the body'

There are different paces and heart rates that correspond to this change in the body and that's what is key with this information. Each runner can maintain a pace or heart rate for a certain amount of time at each lactate level. 

Finding out lactate levels for easy runs, marathon pace and half marathon pace can be very beneficial to a runner because these values are what we class as AEROBIC. Anything faster than half marathon pace you are building up lactic acid at a much much faster rate. 

At PW Performance Coaching we hold appointments for all abilities of runners to have lactate tests to find their correct training zones. 

I hope you are all training well,

Speak soon,

Coach PW