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Heart Rate During Marathon
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I am running my first Marathon (outside of Iron Man) in Seattle at the end of the month. I was wondering what sort of HR (percentage or zone) one should aim for. Shooting for around 3:15 or so..

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Re: Heart Rate During Marathon [Zulu] [ In reply to ]
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Many writers/coachs say that 15-20 below max is about the limit. You would start below that range, spend most of your time in the middle of it, and finish at the top.

ie, max = 185. Build from 160 to 165 in first 5 miles, hold 165 through mile 18 or so, then drift to 170. The stronger, fitter runner will spend more time at 170 or a little over. Of course, these HRs have nothing to do with speed. One runner's 170 pace is 5:00, another's is 8:00 (like me).

This assumes, of course, that you have trained to be able to run for 3+ hours at these HRs. That's a whole nuther thread. It's what I'm spending my fall/winter working on for a January marathon.
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Re: Heart Rate During Marathon [Zulu] [ In reply to ]
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I've also seen it expressed as percentages. Race HR=Min+75-85%(Max-Min).

So, if you have a max of 194 and a min of 60, you run the marathon at 60+.75(134) up to 60+.85(134), obviously, starting low and drifting to the top near the end.
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Re: Heart Rate During Marathon [mr. mike] [ In reply to ]
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Holy Cow!

Is the HR range for a marathon really supposed to be that high? Doing the math from you example gives a range of 160-174, topping out at almost 90% of that max HR!!! That has got to be near or above your Lactate Threshold even if you are in awesome shape. Are you really supposed to run a marathon at your LT?

Damn, if this is true I have a lot of work to do. My max HR is ~190 and I can only hold ~163 for a little more than a 10k. I was thinking that 140-150 was a good range for me to aim for. Please tell me I'm not that pathetic. I know I'm not a very good runner, but I am in decent shape.
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Re: Heart Rate During Marathon [Smiley] [ In reply to ]
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Yeah, 75-85% is probably aggressive. It definitely depends on your physiology. Those are my numbers (or at least they were 1.5 years ago when I ran a marathon), with a relatively high min and max, indicating poor aerobic development. However, my estimate of LTHR (using Friel's method) is 178, so the 75-85% worked for me. I stayed south of 165 for the first 20, but definitely got up to 170+ a few times in the last few miles.

Someone with better aerobic development, but a lower %LTHR, would want to be more conservative from a % standpoint.
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Re: Heart Rate During Marathon [Zulu] [ In reply to ]
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I've been meaning to ask this same question - although I was going to post at Gordo's though very similar people at both.....

If you are running a 2:10 marathon - I think you could run it at close to LT. If you are 3:15 obviously a lower percent....

I think the 15-20 beats off max is quite high.

What races have you done with HR's? I can run an average HR of 150+ in a 5 hour half IM but I only average like 165 in a 2:15 oly....so for me I think I could run for 3 to 3 1/2 hours somewhere between these 2 numbers - probably close to 160 would be my guess....and my max is at least 191 (I hit that in a race - never did a true max protocol). My LT is about 170. My AeT is about 135.

But I was going to ask this question so don't put too much stake in my answer......

Definitely start low and slowly build.....and go for an even of negative split....

Let us know.
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Re: Heart Rate During Marathon [Smiley] [ In reply to ]
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Quote:
That has got to be near or above your Lactate Threshold even if you are in awesome shape.


Yup -- and that is the point of a kick-ass marathon. If we define LT as the pace at which lactic acid is steady at a tolerable, yet high, level (4mmol - ?), then one should be able do that for an hour when in marathon shape. So, the final hour of a marathon would see that kind of HR.

The target HR for me is to hit 170 over the final 6-8 miles. I'm most certainly not there yet. I've done 10 miles at 165-167, and it was pretty challenging. I do a marathon-pace run every three weeks, and am building them up to 1:45 in duration (this is recommended in the Daniels book).
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Re: Heart Rate During Marathon [Julian] [ In reply to ]
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Thanks for all the advice ....some of the numbers do seem a little on the high side. My AT is 170 so I was thinking of keeping things around 155 for at least the first half or so....maybe allowing the odd drift to 160..

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