Progressive Interval Test

My personal favorite is progressive interval test. It can be taken as follows:

  1. 5-10 minutes warmup (e.g., fast walk or jogging).
  2. 2-3 minutes rest, while performing some stretching.
  3. Run 1km to 1mile interval, with 1-1.5 minute break between intervals.
  4. The speed for each interval increases gradually by a constant increment, starting with one’s easy run pace. Note, speed increment measured by speed (mi/h or km/h). I often increment by 0.5 mi/h, which leads to a large number of intervals. It serves me well, since early invervals serves as an extended warmup.
  5. Record the max heart rate for each interval. (low and average heart rate are also interesting to look at).
  6. Stop the test until one can not finish the full interval.

It gives you a full curve of running efficiency at different speed. It would be interesting to see which area of the curve moves after a specific training cycle (e.g., a meso cycle of speed training may lower the HR near the trained speed, but not otherwise).

Heart Rate vs Lactate Level

I used heart rate as a proxy of effort. Many professional runners measure blood lactate level directly. It requires specialized equipment, and can produce an exponential curve. Lactate threshold can be extracted from such reading.

When using heart rate instead, the curve is often a straight line, which makes it impossible to find the “inflection” point. Never the less, such as curve is beneficial to know how one’s efficiency changes at which speed.

Cooper Test (12-min)

The Cooper test is probably the best known test.

It asks one to complete a fastest 12-minute run. The results can be easily converted to VO2Max.

Note - it can be challenging for novice or anyone who is not familiar with such a distance. It requires one to be familiar with self limit, and can allocate the pace smartly to archieve the best result. So such test often underestimate one’s potential.

30-min Test

It is similar to Cooper test, except the duration is 30min. It uses average pace as an estimation Lactate Threshold pace.

Age grading

You can adjust your performance by age. E.g., using this.

It based on recent performance of the similar aged runners, which gives a relatively fair comparison.

The percentage can be generated understood as below (source)

  • Above 40% - You’re faster/fitter than the average person
  • Above 50% - You’re doing pretty good!
  • Above 60% - Local club class level
  • Above 70% - Regional class level
  • Above 80% - National class Level
  • Above 90% - World class level
  • Above 100% - World record level performance (although may not be official)