EPOC question
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I have a question concerning EPOC values. In the last 7 days I run 21 km which is more than I normally ran in the last weeks and looking at the EPOC values there is one I don‘t understand
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A week ago I ran 8,5 km, 8:44 pace with an EPOC of 127, 48 hours recovery
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4 days later I ran 3.6 km, 8:04 pace with an EPOC of 79 which I can still understand (little less than half the distance, but faster), 11 hours recovery
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Today I run 10 km and due to some pain in my right knee, slower with 9:00 pace. At around 5 km EPOC value on the Suunto showed 78 (which still made total sense
) BUT then after another 5 km EPOC only climbed by 9 points, totalling 87, 38 hours recovery
I would have expected an EPOC of around 140 or 150 for this last 10km run. Why is it so low? HR was not different to the runs before (around 155 in average). Is the EPOC value adapting to ones running progress (meaning it drops when you run more, reflecting you bodies adaption to the total distance you ran)? Or is the value of 87 just wrong - and if yes - why is it wrong???
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@ChrisA EPOC isn’t proportional to distance. It typically flattens out during longer activities or may even go down towards the end when intensity isn’t sustained.
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@sky-runner thanks for your reply! I read firstbeats whitepaper about EPOC and there it says : „…EPOC gets higher with higher intensity and/or longer duration of exercise (e.g. Børsheim & Bahr 2003) (see Figures 3 and 4)…“
So Suunto seems to have another calculation, where duration doesn’t seem to have that impact on the EPOC value? For me I am looking for a value that tells me how high the intensity of my runs are while I am running, so I can stay within a certain „load“. I can also use Stravas relative effort (which by the way corresponded exactly like expected to my runs) with Suunto plus but I liked EPOC more since you could integrate it as a datafield in any training screen.It would be great if Suunto would integrate EPOC and PTA in a kind of graphical overview in the Suunto App.
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@ChrisA Strava relative effort is more similar to TRIMP, basically the sum of time spent in zone multiplied by some factor.
Watch: Suunto Vertical Ti
Blog: isazi's home
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@isazi thanks, yes that was my observation too. Coming from a Polar watch, one thing (besides a correct sleep tracking
) I really miss in Suuntos ecosystem is a training load display in the app. As far as I understand something like that existed in Movescout?I can live with Strava relative effort as a beginner, but I really wonder why Suunto, a brand a lot of outdoor runners prefer, does not offer such a feature natively while all the competitors like Polar, Garmin and Coros offer a kind of training load feature together with other training related things.
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@ChrisA training load it’s actually coming in the app, if we trust the survey we just recently had. For me, I use Runalyze at the moment.
Watch: Suunto Vertical Ti
Blog: isazi's home
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@ChrisA EPOC is only proportional to distance of you sustain the same level of effort.
Here is a graph from a 6 hour 50k that shows EPOC vs HR. You can tell I started with a level of effort that was unsustainable for the entire distance, and EPOC reflects that. What that basically means is that my body was able to partially recover as I was still running, and I’d need to consume less oxygen after the entire race to recover vs. if I had stopped after the first hour, which isn’t actually surprising because most of the first hour was running uphill and later in the race I walked all uphills.
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@sky-runner thanks, that makes sense. I started faster and slowed down due pain in my left knee. Thanks for sharing your insights!
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@isazi yes I have seen it on the screenshot posted by someone in this forum. I am very excited how good and progressive the app developement is at the moment! As an iOS user I have daily heartrate and recovery now, which is just great
