my garmin watch is about 10-15% off from my actual (chest strap) HR monitor - i will never trust a watches HR
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How old are you? 191 is really high and I can hold 175 for one minute max. Did you take anything during the ride? Pain killer, salt pills and stuff? They bring my HR slightly up but not that high though.
i’ve seen 183 very briefly…was on the border line of passing out. my guess is that the 191 was a watch issue - no one is pacing at that HR and then living to tell about it.
** no one is pacing at that HR and then living to tell about it. //**
You really should learn about HR and how it relates to training. It is a basic thing to know that the variance in different people can be huge. 191 for some people might be ironman pace…
Sounds like cadence lock
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My Garmin Fenix 5 reports as much as around 40 beats high. Basically I am running on Zwift at 8:10 pace and my chest strap shows 126 heart rate, but I look at my watch and it says 170 heart rate. 
From the watch. If it is error, it’s an odd coincidence that it was two Saturdays in a row with no other noticeable issues ever.
maybe for a 13 year old pacing over 190 doesn’t scream skeptical or a medical condition.
i’ve seen 183 very briefly…was on the border line of passing out. my guess is that the 191 was a watch issue - no one is pacing at that HR and then living to tell about it.
Not true.
It may be unusually high but it’s not outside the bounds of possibility.
A friend of mine has averaged in the 180-190bpm range for multiple marathons and half marathons. I did suggest he check it out since I don’t think his max HR is high enough to explain that, and his cadence is too low for it to be cadence lock…but his highest averages were several years ago and he’s still not dead.
ETA: I’m pretty sure he’s averaged in the 190s for 5km and 10km races.
When I was younger, I used to be able to hold 188 beats per minute for a six hour bike ride.
maybe for a 13 year old pacing over 190 doesn’t scream skeptical or a medical condition.
30M
Max HR 208(max sustained I’ve seen outside of reading blips)
AVG HR in Half Marathon 2 weeks ago 193
I spiked at 204 at the end. 193 average for 91 mins. I had more in the tank, legs held me back.
3 years ago I held 197 avg for 2 hours in the same Half.
My IM HR is around 165-170.
Why am I not dead?
Answer: Genetics. Just because it’s not what you’re used to or it’s uncommon doesn’t mean it’s not common for that person. What is concerning is if HR is outside the norm for the individual, not outside the norm of 220-age.
chest strap HR monitor?
Yes, and I have tested manually when I’ve been 200+ to verify. It is hard to do as I can’t put that effort in and manually check at the same time and it drops very quickly when I stop to check.
i’ve seen 183 very briefly…was on the border line of passing out. my guess is that the 191 was a watch issue - no one is pacing at that HR and then living to tell about it.
Guess i should have been dead long ago. Ive seen my HR max out at 215 and can hold 180-190 for a while.
Probably the heartrate strap because 191 would be absolutely booking it. Definitely an error, there’s just no way it was accurate.
I could do the same at your age, but I was using a Polar HR strap and the old dedicated HR only watch back then. None of the tech we use today was even thought about yet. In sprints I could hit 220 bpm, and I could run a marathon in the 190’s. Now 30 years later 180 feels like my chest will explode.
chest strap HR monitor?
Are you suggesting he’s got consistently erroneous HR data rather than considering these figures are feasible?
Plenty people have used multiple sources of data on a multitude of training sessions and races under varying conditions spanning years and seen consistent data in these ranges. Not spikes, or cadence lock incidents. Not unpredictable or inconsistent with perceived effort or pace. Why do you insist this is not true?
What is your max HR and typical HR for a selection of running or cycling race distances?
Over 10 years ago I measured a HR over 200bpm on several credible occasions and a max of 203 or 204. These 200+ values were always consistent with an all out effort and displayed a normal rising curve lagging the exertion followed by a normal looking recovery. I have on rare occasions had spurious results, these look quite different and are easily dismissed. These days my max HR is somewhere around 190 but that’s expected as max HR does drop with age.
I’ve used 4 different Garmin chest straps from the old hard plastic “classic” strap, to the Tri and Swim straps that were bundled with the 920XT in 2016. For the last couple of years I’ve been using a Scosche optical sensor and again the data is completely consistent with all previous trends.
The friend I mentioned in a previous post who has done half marathons and marathons with very high average HRs has used a similar selection of Garmin sensors and also currently uses an optical Scosche. I’ve seen his data going back about 11 years IIRC and I’ve no reason to doubt it’s accuracy.
You’d be right to query a poster who appeared to be jumping to conclusions based on isolated values from their watch. What you’ve got here is several people with consistent data over many years telling you that what you think is incredible is just incredible to you, because it’s not been your experience.
To clarify, I’m not saying the OPs observations weren’t equipment related. I think it’s quite possible given what he’s told us that it could be “cadence lock”. However you seem to be arguing that such HRs are impossible and that’s simply not the case.
maybe for a 13 year old pacing over 190 doesn’t scream skeptical or a medical condition. //
Have you learned anything from all the responses to this thread yet? It is what I was trying to tell you early on, HR is variable at all ages. Yes, it goes down with age at some point, but if you started at 230+ in your 20’s, even at 70+ years old you are going to be on the very high side of the curve for your AG. And vice versa, if you had a max of 160 at 19, you will probably be maxed out at 125 when you are 70+. But both of those 70+ year olds have the ability to go the same speed in their respective sports…
I’d say, as others have said in this post, that the high HR could be legit. I also agree that your wrist HR is not always accurate. I used a 735XT which is wrist-based HR and I’ve had my HR be steady at 125 for the first half of an easy run and jump to 150 and stay steady there for the rest of the run (treadmill, same pace, same % grade). I would say use a chest HRM if you use HR during training.
With that being said, one of the guys I train with (same age as me) has an easy run HR limit of 165 and runs 180-185 during a 70.3 run, while my easy run HR limit is 140, and I average 165 during a marathon. HR changes from person-to person, age, training load, etc as others have said.
take your HR manually. Don’t rely on gadgets to do everything for you. They are just tools to help and you have to understand their limitations.
That being said, can’t you tell without actually counting what your HR is within a small margin of error? I can usually estimate my HR based on exertion level for a variety of activities within 10 beats, usually less. Certainly the difference between 190 and whatever it would be while on an easy run.
Since you first posted this question I have had my 735 lock onto my cadence while running 2 long runs in a row. Both time it was after a stop at a stoplight where my pulse dropped. When I restarted my pulse was showing 190 and I wasn’t even breathing hard yet. I could make it vary by changing my stride, so it was definitely locked to cadence.
I think it has something to do with pulse and cadence crossing the same number and the watch picking the wrong one to follow. I haven’t figured out how to get the watch back to reading my pulse once that happens yet, but it is pretty annoying.