A great way to monitor your improvement and work on appropriate pacing strategies is to set up training loops.  Depending on the length of your ride or run you would ideally cover the loop between 3 and 12 times…or more.  This then gives you a tremendous amount of data to look at and see where you start to slow.  If you keep track of your average HR and lap splits, you can also compare week to week or month to month to ensure you’re making gains in your training.  There are a few different ways to go about tracking your loops:

#1. Peg your HR at a particular level and just keep running or riding while taking splits every lap.  You’ll most likely notice a drop in time after every loop – but the fitter you are the less that drop will be and the faster your overall time will be at the conclusion of your chosen distance.

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