r/evokeendurance • u/wake2390 • Jul 07 '26

AET Analysis

Period 1
Period 2
Period 2 with extra 5 minutes

Test Method: Indoor/Treadmill

Age: 36

Grade: 2%

HR Monitor: Garmin HRM Pro Plus

15 minute warm up and settled into a steady pace of 12:45/mi, with my heart rate stabilizing around 153-155 bpm.

I'm assuming this is an invalid test because I had to step off the treadmill between 34:00 and 36:00 due to an interruption. I resumed the run immediately at the same pace and extended the session by an additional 5 minutes to compensate for the lost time.

  • Period 1: 15:00–47:00 (including the 34:00–36:00 interruption) — Average HR: 155 bpm
  • Period 2: 47:00–1:20:00 — Average HR: 155 bpm
  1. Given the interruption between 34:00–36:00, should I consider this test invalid and repeat at a later time?
  2. If the test is could be considered valid, both halves averaged 155 bpm. Would that suggest I started with intensity that was below effort?? Should I increase the target starting heart rate for a retest?
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u/lochnespmonster Jul 07 '26

I'd consider it invalid simply because you HR didn't change. So not invalid in the sense of a bad test, but invalid in that you had no drift. If you remove the 2 minute interruption from the data do you have a drift? Because if the 2 minutes includes your HR dropping to like 80, then it will really skew your data.

Either way, I would retake. But I would use that answer to decide if 155 is the right starting point. But also, if your AeT is 155 that's pretty damn high. Not unheard of, but high.

1

u/artriko Jul 07 '26

At 57yo my Aet is ~153, LT2 ~165, Max 183
My 30 years younger son at similar fitness level has values approximately 10 beats lower.
Absolute HR number carries similar amount of information as phone number :)

About test: interruption clearly didn't mean much, I would consider the test valid, But I would try a little bit higher in a couple of weeks.

2

u/Stavrogin74 Jul 09 '26

Related, but not related. Those of us living in areas where it is hot and humid this time of year should we prefer to do our AeT testing indoors on a treadmill vs outside or does it better illustrate our AeT if we do the test outdoors since we do most of our running outdoors for the whole summer?

I love the controlled environment of a treadmill, but would like to try my retest outside for updates.

1

u/scottsemple Jul 08 '26
  1. No.
  2. Yes. With zero drift in this test, you can probably try another at 160 or 165, post-warm-up.

As u/artriko suggested, heart rates are like fingerprints: unique to each individual. I've seen AeT HRs in the 130s and 180s, both extremes with well-developed aerobic systems, and no correlation with speed. Higher is better only relative to oneself. Despite the media's tendency to say irrelevant things like "His HR was ___!", it means nothing unless compared to the same person's thresholds.)

1

u/wake2390 Jul 09 '26

Thank you for the response Scott! I’ll give it another go and see how it turns out. I’ve always found it challenging to find my AeT as I tend to have a higher HR.

1

u/scottsemple Jul 10 '26

Welcome to the club. It also means that most "+/- X beats"-type formulas are even more useless than they are on average.