A customer of ours is using a heart rate monitor for the first time. We’ve done several trials with different brands of monitor, and it seems like her heart rate is above the norm.
About her: early 30s, fairly lean but not elite athlete lean. Has done several sprint distance tris and one Oly. Is currently training for 1/2 marathon, running about 8:15 race pace. She’s a regular participant in Pilates & Yoga in addition to running.
About her HR: We did a test today that probably measured her VO2 max: we both ran/walked with a group of beginners for an hour, very slowly. After the group run, we ran a mile out at moderate but conversational pace. On the way back, I paced her at about 7:30 and kept challenging her to push harder. She was not running at an all out sprint, but she couldn’t have gone any faster and made it the whole way back. Actual mile split was 7:25. Her HR at the end of that mile was 197. She was able to speak 3-5 word sentences during that run back. After the run, her HR came down to 160 in about a minute, 140 in 2 minutes, 125 in 5 minutes.
Based on that test and I’m guessing her Max HR is around 202-205. Her zone 2 (fast walk / light jog) HR seems to be around 140-150.
My question is: is there anything she should be worried about as she ramps up her training? High Blood pressure? Arythmia? Danger of an anurism? Something else? Is a high HR during exercise reason enough to go through some more advanced testing to see if there’s any potential danger lurking?
from the article:
“One of the examples was two guys about the same age, in their 50s. Both were 51-minute-plus 40k riders who rode very steady straight-line races. The only problem was that one did it at 190 beats and the other at 160.”
I used to train w/ a pro duathlete in tucson a few years ago who had a max hr of 226 in his 30’s. We’d go run an easy 7 miler and he would be cruising along at 180. My max was 194 and I’d be at 145 for comparisions.
i am 20 years old right now…my LT is @ 163 or so…my 1/2 marathons are run @ 174-176 average. My zone 2 by comparison to hers is 144-156…and i haven’t had any of the problems that you mentioned…
I would strongly recommend she see her doctor about it. Especially if her resting heart rate is also abnormally high, say over 80 or 90. (You mentioned 125bpm, 5 minutes after a hard mile) and ESPECIALLY if her blood pressure is even close to the borderline for pre-hypertension.
I was recently diagnosed with a hyperthyroid condition based on these factors, my age (31) and my athletic level (not quite that of your friend, but no couch potato!). Doc made what seemed to me at the time a “wild guess” but a blood test proved his diagnosis dead on. It’s something that MUST be treated to avoid all sorts of nastiness later on.
If the only thing that stands out is her HR during the run (and not any of the things that Zo mentions) I wouldn’t be worried- it’s not out of the ordinary. I’m a 34yo male with a max HR of ~200 (I’ve actually measured 198 a couple of times in a finishing sprint so I’d imagine that if a lion was chasing me I could actually get it a bit higher). My zone 2 running HR is 152-165 and my AeT is 153-154. It doesn’t sound like there’s anything out of the ordinary with her HR.
Thanks for the heads-up about hypertension or pre-hypertension. She wore the HR monitor to sleep and found a resting HR of 52. Based on what I’ve seen here and some other research I’ve done, I’ve told her: a)I’m not a doctor and have no medical knowledge whatsoever, but b)it seems like her Max HR is above normal but there’s no reason to be concerned just because of that one indication. She’ll mention it to her doc the next time she’s in for a physical.
Some of the responses in this thread do bring up an interesting question, though: does a high Max HR predispose someone to being good at endurance events? The post above about the duathlete with a Max HR of 226 might be an outlier, but we all know someone faster than us who has put up some big HR numbers. If Max HR really is genetic and not trainable, then it would be interesting to see if the average max HR of endurance athletes is higher than the average max HR of other types of athletes or of the general population. Seems like some physiology grad student must have done some kind of study about this.
I would not think so - Luc van Lierde races IM with 125 bpm while running 4.10 minutes per kilometre (see www.ironmanlive.com). And, additionaly, maximal heart rate is a phenomenon that should statistically run according to the “normal distribution”. If we take “220 - age” as the average, the woman in question should have an maximal heart rate of about 190 bpm. Normal distribution says we should expect two thirds of the population (of age 30) to be in the interval 190 plus/minus squareroot(190), ie. between 176 and 204. So I do not see any problem there.