A heart rate monitor is definitely a worthwhile piece of equipment in which to invest. Monitoring your heartrate is an excellent way to make sure you are working hard enough during your hard/interval workouts and going easy enough during your LSD/recovery workouts.

I think it was a (very fast) Kenyan runner who said, when asked why Kenyan distance runners perform better than American runners, that American runners run their hard workouts too easy and their easy workouts too hard.

How many of those articles identified how important a HRM is to your program? Most of them I am sure. If you listen to Mark Allen (and we all listen to everything he has to say), he says that a HRM is the single most important piece of equipment you can own. I have been only using one for the last few months, however, my times have come down while maintaining a relatively low heartrate compared to the efforts I had previously put in. Also, when it comes to the training that you hate, then your HRM will ensure you don't get burnt out and hate getting up in the morning. For me, I hated running with a passion because it hurt, everyone seemed to run past me effortlessly and it took me ages to recover from a session. Since using an HRM, I have enjoyed running because the effort is not in the anaerobic zone, recovery is very fast, injuries are much less and my times have plummeted.

Basically, get a HRM. I have a Nike one which does the job very well. Looks better than the Polar ones. I did also pick it up from a Nike Factory Outlet very cheap so loving that!

Enjoy.

Sam.

Thanks Sam.

Seems like an excellent buy. The articles I´ve cited can be found at www.heartzone.com link heart zone calculator. It stresses the importance of finding the zones (automatically), and how it can help during training. Anyway, thanks for the advice. I better get my HRM asap.

Gus