Wanted advice on HR for running please. I have been training - as a newbie to tri - for 5 months now in preparation for my first event. I spent time looking at how to train using the phases approach and have used a HRM since day 1.
I started out running on treadmills as I am totally not a gifted runner and assumed that would be the easiet introduction to this discipline. I have monitored my progress - HR, diet and hydration all along and tried to slowly build up load whilst keeping to to a max of 75% of MHR.
My query is that when I actually road run I always average 89/90% regardless of how ‘easy’ I try to take it. I appreciate there are greater forces at work when road running i.e. resistance, wind, heat - as opposed to the sterile gym conditions - but having read many articles on HR’s and training max’s I can’t help feeling 90% is too high. I use the 220 minus age (not that acurate I understand) as a guide so at 35 my max is 185 with this equation.
Can anyone offer any advice please? I don’t wan’t to knacker myself out before I get started
It does take a while to get use to running - due to the weight bearing, and impact nature of it (about 3 months to get comfortable with it - in my experience). I would throw the 220-age formula as far way as possible. Even using max HR is not that good. I would recommend doing a TT (time trial) of some sort (10-30min), and using % of the HR that you can average in the TT (this is assuming you have 4-6 weeks training under your belt). There should be a good difference between your TT HR and most of your “easy” or aerobic training.
I agree with Tony on a lot of points especially about throwing away the 220 minus age formula, I’m 19 but I’ve had my heart reliably measured quite a bit higher then 201 in track workouts. I like the idea about finding your racing zone, if you have started working your way into workouts you might want to try and find your personal hr max as well.
From what I’ve read and experienced a good way to find that out is doing hill repeats on a 300-500 meter incline (not ridiculously steep, but a steady rise throughout the climb) with easy/medium/hard intervals. Make your rest the time it takes you to run easy back to the bottom of the hill but don’t stand around at the bottom immediately take off up the hill. You should feel/notice you hr increase on the first two intervals, especially the medium one but the most important interval is the hard one, go all out as if it’s the final 300 meters of a race, as you reach the end immediately check your monitor because it should be giving you an accurate representation of what your max is.
I hope this helps, it probably doesn’t much now that I look at what I wrote, but good luck in your first tri anyway.
It’s wise to train by HR and most folks can’t run very far at 90% HR. 220 - age is a generic formula, but actual MHR can vary widely. I agree with the posts above, if you’re serious about HR training you should perform MHR tests. There are many ways to do a test, just make sure you have an ample warm-up before the test. You need to dig way deep and feel the burn to get close to your true MHR, so for accuracy, do it on a day when you are well rested. MHR also varies between run, bike and swim, with bike MHR generally being 10 beats less than run, and swim 10 less than bike. Enjoy the burn and good luck.
Like the other posters mentioned 220-age is very outdated - read this article and see if it makes more sense. I comapred all the different HR formulas to show the difference in theories - my best advice is the talk test - if you can say a complete sentence when training then you are training aerobically - let me know if you have any questions about the article…
