I'm no expert, but when I was learning about heart rate training, one of the books told me to do hill repeats after a good warm up run to determine the maximum heart rate and to set the other zones as a percentage of maximum.

That book was Something like, Heart Rate Training for the Complete Idiot by John Parker

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Sharon McN
@IronCharo
#TeamZoot
Clif Bar Pace Team 2003-2018

Forget max HR to calculate zones, do a 15-min protocol to find Threshold Heart Rate and calculate from that... Google Joe Friel

One of the tests one can do is a 30 Min Steady State run - warm up well then run at your best speed one can do for the full 30 mins -pacing is important - and then take that average HR and work zones out from that.

if you do this on a track - useful to record the distance as well - for measurement purposes as you progress.

Hope this helps

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Graham Wilson
USAT Level III Elite Coach
http://www.thewilsongroup.biz

Thanks guys!

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"Base training is bull shit" - desertdude

How long did that 7 mile race take you? If it was longer than 45 minutes, your heart rate and pace over the last couple of miles (not including a last 1/2 mile sprint) was likely pretty close to Daniels' threshold zone.

Of course you can extrapolate a few things from this race if you have pace and hr. If you gave it all your average pace is probably very close to your threshold pace even with the rolling terrain. You may be able to find a max hr if you did sprint at the end, but if you ran an even race then no. But, even more significant is you avg. hr for the whole race because that will be close to your threshold hr. Again, threshold hr is what all your hr zones should be base around, not hr max.