Typical heart rate pattern for a marathon? (or other races)

You should look up the old Hadd training threads. He talks about that a bit, and agrees with your observation. Pretty flat graph until the end when you just redline. If I remember right, Hadd said to expect a gradually climbing graph for races up to 10k, and more or less flat for half marathons and marathons.

This thread falls under the "hobbyjogger" category of conversations. You might find answers suited better for you at RunnersWorld or Reddit.

Were you using wrist based or a strap? I've used a few brands and models of wrist based, and it's generally not accurate in cold temps/wind and at any pace. I've found it works more accurately in warm temps. It's like they test and calibrate the watches in warm temps, and it goes haywire when the conditions are outside what was tested. I would only trust it if it's giving believable HR for easy and hard workouts leading up to a race. Otherwise, a strap is the most reliable way to get HR.

Hadd said marathon effort equates to around 87-90% of HR max. It could be lower for someone who's not as fit/who's lactate threshold is lower. 165 sounds too low for someone who's max is just under 200. If we used 198 max, that means you should be at 172-178. You may not be getting everything out of yourself. Lactate threshold should be around 92-93%. If you do some threshold runs pushing up to 172-178 and then try to push higher than this (until you feel lactate threshold in your legs), you'll get your lactate threshold HR. Marathon pace is about 5-10 beats lower than this.

HR 101. wrote:

Hadd said marathon effort equates to around 87-90% of HR max. It could be lower for someone who's not as fit/who's lactate threshold is lower. 165 sounds too low for someone who's max is just under 200. If we used 198 max, that means you should be at 172-178. You may not be getting everything out of yourself. Lactate threshold should be around 92-93%. If you do some threshold runs pushing up to 172-178 and then try to push higher than this (until you feel lactate threshold in your legs), you'll get your lactate threshold HR. Marathon pace is about 5-10 beats lower than this.

I agree that 165 is low. I follow a lot of the Hadd base building principles using a HRM and the 87-90% seems very accurate for me. My HRmax is about 202 and my marathons have averaged from 179-182.

As others have suggested, the cause of the lowness is key. It might just have been your monitor. I've used mine for years and I always can tell when something is not right. If you're new to HR training, just stop for 10 seconds and take your pulse (then x6). If it's higher than what the watch says, then you know it's the monitor. If it's slightly lower, it's probably OK cuz it's dropping as you're taking your pulse. A lot lower means the reading is off towards the high end.

I was curious about this as well.

My HRmax is ~ 185.

My LTHR is ~ 168 i.e. 91% of max

I've run two marathons where I have HR data:

- HR avg 157 (PR)

- HR avg 154 (Boston 2018)

So that's about 83-85% of max. If I can't run faster (due to cramping/fatigue/muscles tightening up) does it mean that I lack mileage, i.e. can't run as fast as hypothetically could on a given fitness?

For example VDOT 58 for shorter races, but can only run say VDOT 56 in the marathon due to? "endurance"? more miles? Is that right? On the other hand I am thinking...with more miles, wouldn't your baseline be even lower compared to your max? As you can see this is a bit confusing.

For many people lactate threshold (or similar) is at around 85 - 92 % of max HR. That would be 10 km to half pace.

For someone who needs three or more hours to complete a marathon, 80 - 85 % of max makes sense.

Me:

152-173, this climbs slightly throughout...

Sub18Hopeful wrote:

I was curious about this as well.

My HRmax is ~ 185.

My LTHR is ~ 168 i.e. 91% of max

I've run two marathons where I have HR data:

- HR avg 157 (PR)

- HR avg 154 (Boston 2018)

So that's about 83-85% of max. If I can't run faster (due to cramping/fatigue/muscles tightening up) does it mean that I lack mileage, i.e. can't run as fast as hypothetically could on a given fitness?

For example VDOT 58 for shorter races, but can only run say VDOT 56 in the marathon due to? "endurance"? more miles? Is that right? On the other hand I am thinking...with more miles, wouldn't your baseline be even lower compared to your max? As you can see this is a bit confusing.

I've only topped out at 40+ mpw a few times, but have pretty decent leg speed from years of athletics and shorter distance running. My avg hr for HM-19 mile long runs has been in the 150s, but I can get my avg hr up near 165-168 for 5k-10 milers, highest I've peaked was 189. I am hopefully some years away from a peak in HM-Marathon distance so I can't say I've ran a HM to my max because I just don't have the strength yet. Will be interesting to see in the years to come how that evolves. Being inexperienced with mileage and longer distance racing, if I am avg 168 hr at mile 6 of a HM, it's going to be a terribly painful last half of the race and a bonk will surely follow.

EU cyclist wrote:

For many people lactate threshold (or similar) is at around 85 - 92 % of max HR. That would be 10 km to half pace.

For someone who needs three or more hours to complete a marathon, 80 - 85 % of max makes sense.

Thanks for that --- seems in line then (2:59 was HR 154 i.e. 83% and 2:56 was HR 157 i.e. 85%).

For me to average over 160 I think could be possible with more miles, that's 87% of max. Getting close to 90% of max would seem to require extreme fitness/endurance/tons of miles but it's probably possible, at least in theory.

That's when you can realize what the online calculators tell you, and run races like 2 x HM plus only 5-8 minutes.

It should be below threshold.

Did you fade or run the whole marathon at a consistent pace. I agree with the others in saying the mid 160s seems too low for a max HR of 200. But dag namnit what were your paces for various splits?

This is fairly representative for my marathons (excepting disasters . . .), nominally even splits, heartrate gradually creeping up especially in the second half, average heart rate here was 87.5% of max, near ideal conditions. It's NYC hence the slow first mile up the bridge and fast second mile down the bridge.

http://i66.tinypic.com/2vafcyv.png

Citizen Runner wrote:

This is fairly representative for my marathons (excepting disasters . . .), nominally even splits, heartrate gradually creeping up especially in the second half, average heart rate here was 87.5% of max, near ideal conditions. It's NYC hence the slow first mile up the bridge and fast second mile down the bridge.

http://i66.tinypic.com/2vafcyv.png

Excellent execution! I like the slight ramp up after mile 20 as well: emptying the tank. My PR chart is similar, though it goes exponential for the last 0.5 mi which probably means I left a few minutes on that course.

Sub18Hopeful wrote:

I like the slight ramp up after mile 20 as well: emptying the tank.

Funny you should notice that. My previous marathon outing was a smallish race and I was running alone for virtually all of the 2nd half. In retrospect I felt like I finished more conservatively than needed and was very conscious of going hard after mile 20 in this one.

Not sure how to make that image show up but that's a graph of my HR in a marathon PR. My max is somewhere around 195-200 and I averaged something like 168ish for my best marathon ever. My resting HR is quite low at around 35 bpm so my range is bigger.

You can see some fluctuation in HR over the last 5 miles as I attempt to push hard. At that point my instantaneous pace only ranges from about 5:40 to 6:00 but my HR reacts to every little surge.

For longer races it is common to see the heart drift upward (cardiovascular drift) even when intensity remains the same.

This is true even when one is properly hydrated.

A concern with a consistent HR in a marathon is that you would be slowing down thus no HR increase.

I did fade at the end by 30-45 seconds per mile (Last mile was okay, but 20-25 were slow). This included the mistake of leaving my 'nutrition' in the car so I was pretty much depending on the carbs of gatorade to stop a full breakdown I also was coming off a recent minor injury as well so there was potential for things to be better. Heck the low heart rate may actually match the conditions of it being an imperfect race.

The heart rate monitor is a watch so I can't promise the numbers are 100% accurate but it does provide consistent data across my workouts, so even if it is wrong the general trends should still be reliable. That is why I was more interested in the trends overall. I don't intend to draw many conclusions from the information I just thought the data was interesting.

Now that I'm thinking about it again I guess I could creep on the other racers strava data to see how it matches up.

At constant pace, it's normal for heart rate to drift up later in a marathon.

As you use up glycogen you tend get more energy from burning fat, which requires more oxygen per joule, so your heart and lungs have to work harder.