For those of you who train by heart rate...

You didn't mention your max heart rate. Do you know it? The standard "220 - age" formula isn't good enough. It misses by a lot for some athletes.

I've heard that formula thrown around. If it is inaccurate how would I test my max heart rate?

Heartrateman wrote:

I've heard that formula thrown around. If it is inaccurate how would I test my max heart rate?

Find a steep hill. Run up it as fast as you can. On about the third or perhaps fourth time up the hill you will likely reach max heart rate.

There are any number of protocols out there. I'd do a full warmup and time-trial an 800m, taking the higest heart-rate you see (should be toward the end).

Rand wrote:

There are any number of protocols out there. I'd do a full warmup and time-trial an 800m, taking the higest heart-rate you see (should be toward the end).

I would contend you would not reach max heart rate with a 800m time trial.

Wear your watch during your next race. You'll probably hit your max HR near the end of a 5K.

Also, take some time to get to know your own heart rate. You can't go off of what you read online, but after a few months you'll get a better sense of what range is recovery pace, easy pace, steady pace, tempo pace, and so on. Basically, run by feel and then see what your HR monitor says, not the other way around.

My max heart rate is somewhere around 213-215, and my easy days usually sit in the 160s and 170s. Not much to worry about, it just takes time to learn your own body without a lab max heart rate test or anything fancy.

Your 3200 PR is quite a bit worse than your 1600 (by about 30 seconds) which means you are aerobically underperforming. The main way to address this is more miles, at a slower pace. 7:30 is fine as an easy pace IF you are aerobically developed, which, as I have stated, you are not. Your HR (~70%) should be closer to 140-150at max on easy days. Try slowing down to 8:00 pace or even slower, and upping your mileage. Keep workouts the same. This process takes months at a minimum to yield results, so don't expect a breakthough during XC, but by Spring track you should find yourself at a new level.

This is a common problem with High School runners. Address it and you will surpass your PRs as well as your peers.

Blah Blah. wrote:

Rand wrote:

There are any number of protocols out there. I'd do a full warmup and time-trial an 800m, taking the higest heart-rate you see (should be toward the end).

I would contend you would not reach max heart rate with a 800m time trial.

What is the concern?

There are any number of ways to reach HRmax. Hill workouts can be very good too. I think the time trial approach is pretty hard to mess up but the warmup is critical. You should go in breathing pretty hard. If you are a smoking fast 800m runner and fear you won't quite reach max HR in under 2min, you could do a longer time trial like 1000 or even 1500m.

I enjoy training by HR and do all my easy and medium aerobic days based on that. I don't think HR is best for anything faster than tempo work. And even with tempos I'm going off of feel more than HR.

I also don't think training in HR zones based on max HR is a must. I know some people love that, but as has been pointed out, max HR is super tough to find, and it can move around depending on what shape you're in. Sill, wearing the watch in some hard races and interval sessions just to see what you hit is a good idea.

As to your 160s on easy runs, that is most likely too hard. At your age I'm guessing you will be around 140s but more likely low 150s for easy runs. This is where you should play around with the watch. Go do some runs where you never leave the 130s, do some runs where you never leave the 140s, same with the 150s. Pay close attention to how everything feels.

I personally do all my easy runs in the 130s and my slightly quicker but still not hard runs in the low 140s. But I'm twice as old as you. My goal with this is to gauge effort and slowly get faster in those specific ranges. I am of course also working to get faster in workouts and races.

I have not been playing around with this for very long, but it is fun. In the winter the low 140s had me around 9 minute miles. Now the 130s has me in the high 7 minutes. Recovery is sooooo much better for me than it used to be.

For now, I wouldn't worry about how slow you go on your easy days. I don't think you need to drop to 10 minute miles, but see how the low 150s feels. If you haven't been spending any time at these lower heartrates, then it will take time to get faster in them. But when you do, you'll find you get faster at all the higher heartrates, too.

Heartrateman wrote:

I am a senior in high school who has ran since his freshman year. I have been injured three times, twice in cross country, and once in track. My mile PR from my junior year is 456 and my 3200 time is 1108 and I'm looking to go around 1730 this XC season. I recently got a watch and have started watching my heart rate during runs, and what I saw shocked me. My average heart rate on my "easy days" was around 160-170. From what I understand that is too high for easy days, most people run around 140 on their easy days. Yet when my heart rate is 140 I'm running around 1000 minute mile pace (my usual training pace for easy days is around 730) I was wondering if anyone else here has experienced a similar situation. Any feedback would be nice, thanks!

Welcome to enlightenment. You've been training too hard. Much too hard. Probably...

First, though, let's make sure. The hill workout someone suggested is spot on for determining your max. Over the next week or so, take you pulse as soon as you wake up.

Let's say that you discover that your max is 200 and your resteing hr (average your morning hr measurements) is 60. Then, your heart rate reserve (HRH) is 140. A good maximum effort for you is 60% of your rhr plus your resting hr. With these numbers that works out to 60 + .6*140 = 124. In this case you would keep your running under 124.

Yes, it's likely that once you start doing your recovery runs at the proper pace, you will be running very very slowly - at least compared to what you usually run. That's OK. Over time, your pace on these runs will improve. As it does, so will your fitness and, so will your race times.

Patience!

Ah geez! I need more (or, maybe, less..) coffee. 144.

Rand wrote:

Blah Blah. wrote:

I would contend you would not reach max heart rate with a 800m time trial.

What is the concern?

There are any number of ways to reach HRmax. Hill workouts can be very good too. I think the time trial approach is pretty hard to mess up but the warmup is critical. You should go in breathing pretty hard. If you are a smoking fast 800m runner and fear you won't quite reach max HR in under 2min, you could do a longer time trial like 1000 or even 1500m.

Running a 1500m time trial would be worse. If you run a marathon as fast as you can and you are totally exhausted at the end, your HR will not have reached its maximum.

Exhaustion != Max HR

I was gonna say, 144 sounds better.

You can see from Links calculation why max HR matters but also why it's not a huge deal is you are off by a few beats so don't get hung up on finding the perfect max HR test. Just do something hard to get an estimate and use it to calculate your easy pace window.

Blah Blah. wrote:

Rand wrote:

What is the concern?

There are any number of ways to reach HRmax. Hill workouts can be very good too. I think the time trial approach is pretty hard to mess up but the warmup is critical. You should go in breathing pretty hard. If you are a smoking fast 800m runner and fear you won't quite reach max HR in under 2min, you could do a longer time trial like 1000 or even 1500m.

Running a 1500m time trial would be worse. If you run a marathon as fast as you can and you are totally exhausted at the end, your HR will not have reached its maximum.

Exhaustion != Max HR

Yes, a marathon would be too long because it's run quite a bit below vVO2max but this in no way proves your point. Do you really think people don't hit max HR in 800m and 1500m races? Hell, you could get within a few beats of HR max looking at peak HR in a 5k.