New Terms

While preparing my training schedule this year I have pulled from a variety of sources and along the way have been picking up new terminology that is, apparently, used by other people to describe how they train.

First, let me review the terminology I used last year.

• Race pace - The goal speed during the race
• Run - Go for a run not quite as fast as race pace
• Tempo - Go for a bike/run slightly faster than race pace but for less distance
• Intervals - Go for a bike/run with high intensity parts mixed in with low intensity recovery parts
• Hills - Go for a bike and spend most of the time going up and down a relatively steep grade hill

My understanding of these terms has not changed, and I think I, at least understood how to, use them correctly to make gains in my performance.

Some new terms I've picked up

• RPE - Rating of Perceived Exertion. A method of planning that allows you to understand how hard you should be pushing yourself. There are a couple of scales, but the one I have adopted is 1-10 because it fits in my worldview, and a scale that starts at 6 is confusing. The following explanation is my paraphrasing of (http://www.topendsports.com/testing/rpe-intensity.htm)
• 0 is no effort
• 2-3 normal training effort
• 5 is a hard effort, likely race-pace
• 7-8, interval effort
• 10 is maximum effort, you cannot hold this pace for long at all, maybe a sprint at the end of a race
• Strides - A gradual acceleration over a relatively short distance. For example, every five minutes you go from your normal training effort to close to max effort over the course of 20 seconds, then back to normal.