Rocky,

I've seen this sort of thing when a heart rate monitor was "sensing" my run cadence rather than heart rate i.e. firing with each step. Electrode gel such a Ba-Bump cured the problem for me.

Hugh

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Genetics load the gun, lifestyle pulls the trigger.

Any insight would be great. //

Your max HR is not your age subtracted from 220, we have known that formula to be bunk for 40 years now.

If you saw 205, then it is upwards of there, how much is hard to tell unless you do some type of max or AT test. But for now I would used 210 as your max HR for setting up zones and such, until you can figure out what it really is. But that should be close enough, much closer than that old outdated formula.

I wrote a 2 part series on HR training over 17 years ago here, can't seem to find the old articles at the moment. The archives here are dark and deep..(-;

I fully agree. Use the 205 until which time you can be tested. Its not expensive and most college athletic or medical centers will do it for you. Should be about $200. As I read somewhere in the past, there are basically two ways to determine your actual max HR; a competitive situation or a lab. I guess if you running for your life, you would also see your true max rate.

Max measured HR has a lot of variables. I do stress testing for a living and can honestly say that for John Q Public, the 220=age is not awful. 220-1/2age is also reasonable but remember it is a bell curve for true measured max HR numbers. And it decrements with age, variably.

I measured my kids when they were running and doing sports competitively at age 7/9 and then again when they were 11/13. Every time they were above 220, so I figure the 'max' we start out may be higher than 220. Athlete's degrade their HR less over their life for sure, IMO and by the thousands of stress tests that I've done.

And there are always ends of the bell curve-my 53 yo wife can hit 200 and did, reliably with her marathon training.

This doesn't mean that arrhythmia can't happen and false readings occur for lots of reasons-most commonly tracking step rate. But when my son's HR went from 60 to 220, I knew that was an arrhythmia...

Wear your HR monitor, do a 5K and finish like your 'hair was on fire' for the last 0.1.
Use that as your closest measured max HR and define your zones.

Or do it the way most of the rest of the world does-use tempo HR.

Comparing pace and avg heart rate over varying durations won’t tell you much.

Muscular endurance is really what you are measuring in your examples.

At a given avg heart rate you will run faster over a shorter run and slower over a longer run.

When holding pace constant over longer durations you will see a rise in your avg heart rate. This used to be called cardiac drift, but it is a function of your muscles tiring and you needing to work harder to hold pace.

What are you using for your HR monitor? I don't trust the numbers on my Garmin 235 (measured at the wrist) near as much as I do my Garmin 920 (measured on the chest strap). The 235 gives me a similar issue that you explained.
I would also agree with other comments; 220-age isn't the best predictor for those of us that train. I would suspect your max is much higher than 191.
Interesting observation about the cadence possibly being sensed instead of HR. I hadn't thought of that before, but it seems plausible based on the numbers you posted.

The usual time of overspensing HR for cadence happens in the first 10 minutes or so of a run. After that, the body is warmer and sweating starts which makes for better contact. Of course when it’s cold/warm, sweating may start earlier or later...


If you look at the data, it’s sometimes obvious when it’s artifact. When the rise is slow and gradual , it’s more likely to be real.

Thank you, this makes sense, I had always thought about HR as being kind of like your body's perceived exertion. A higher heart rate meant you were working harder so running the same distance at a faster pace would require a higher heart rate. I checked my HR over the first 5 miles of my long run compared to the 5 miles of my "fast" run and my HR was 10-15 bpm slower for the first 4 miles of my long run but then about the same for the 5th mile.

I'm using the wrist based measurement on a Forerunner 935. I've verified that it's accurate at rest but it was too difficult to count my pulse while running (I kept counting my cadence). The cadence theory might hold water but my average cadence is 178-180, which is 10 higher than my average HR.

Thank you all for the replies! I'm going to assume a higher max HR (~210) and use that until I can get a better measure. At least now I don't have to feel like I'm being told that I'm working at 85-95% on an easy long run!

Use a chest strap if you want anything close to accurate numbers while running. The wrist will give you a general idea but, at least in my experience, it is very poor at tracking actual HR during running.

Ignore 220-age because it is a load of old bollocks, for a lot of people. You need to discover your own HRmax if you want to use %HRmax or %HRR as a basis for training.

One example... when I was 38 my 220-age HRmax would theoretically have been 182. I exceeded 210 a number of times that year, and would frequently go over 200 in races or hard intervals. I think my highest recorded was 214, and it never exploded in my chest.

Now I might be a bit of a freak but my HR resting was 44 and I was running 36-37ish minute 10k, so I wasn't worrying.