Low max Heart rate? (182/182 bpm?)

If you hit the point of exhaustion too soon... say the 2 and half mile mark and just hold on until the end... your HR at the end will not be as high as it could be.

In my experience, a controlled hard run until the last 400m and a kick to the finish will elicit MHR. If I ran so hard I was forced to slow down over the last 800m or so, I couldn't get close to MHR.

For what it's worth, it really doesn't matter if you hit MHR at the end of a 5k.

I'm just trying to take a lazy approach to finding my maxHR without doing a field test or going to a lab tbh - and furthermore to find out my HR zones to work in.

220 minus age doesn't work for an awful lot of runners. At best it provides a guide.

Do you do any very intensive work in training that would push your heart rate to its max? Fast - 800 or 1500 pace - effortr with very short - 30 second - recoveries?

I read somewhere that Bob Schul had a very low maximum heart rate and it didn't do him any harm!a

I have had good success in eliciting a pretty close max HR by running on a treadmill while wearing a HR monitor watch or chest strap.

I start off with an easy warmup for a mile or two at 1% grade. Then I increase the speed to about 5k pace or a little faster. The speed stays at this level for the rest of the test. Then every minute I increase the incline by 1%. I keep going until I can’t keep up with the pace. I then drop the incline back to 1% and slow the speed down to what feels manageable and try to run at least 1 more minute.

My HR monitor will show my HR max and it is usually just after dropping the incline back to 1%. I will be turning 60 in April and I can get my HR up to 186. The 220 - age formula would put my max at 160. I base all my training paces off of the 185 HR and it fits quite well. My regular training runs are at medium/easy effort and my HR falls in the 130 - 140 range, which is between 70% and 75% of my max HR.

I have the exact same issue. I’m 23 by can’t quite hit my max HR in workouts or races.

OP: Attaining your maximal heart rate is not as easy as it sounds. Based on the even distribution of your heart rate throughout your recent 5K race, I would estimate that you reached at MOST 95% of your maximal heart rate, if not quite less. There is a non-linear relationship between heart rate and effort, especially at the maximal end. I strongly recommend the conventional uphill maximal heart rate test to reach yours. As an example, a close friend of mine is 35, has a multiply-tested maximal heart rate of 205, and he doesn't often reach above 195 - unless he performs the appropriate testing.

Hr max means nothing

This is probably the best way to measure a max HR, but unfortunately it's extremely painful, as would be any "max" test.

I probably never hit my max HR during track races. The best simulation would a short uphill race. You don't even need to be running to hit max. I did a trail run with a very steep 0.9mi climb (takes 12 minutes for me at 90% effort, maybe 11min at 100%) and you end up power-hiking a large portion of it. My max this weekend was 180 during that climb and my actual max is probably low 190s.

More likely to be your training, specifically, a lack of quality work.

Not to say it is mandatory to add that work now, but my guess is velocity at 170 HR or HR at 5:40 pace is probably a more accurate assessment of your recent weeks training.

And 5000m is not actually a valid test for max anything; this misconception one of the persistent myths in running.