tempo/threshold heart rates

All those HR's you mention were measured with a strap, correct?

yes, but its always been consistent

If threshold pace actually feels comfortably hard during a 20 minute tempo or cruise intervals (remember to keep the rest short and honest), then it's the right pace. Remember to adjust for weather, shoes, and surface.

You might also want to adjust a little based on your speed vs endurance. If you have way better endurance than speed, your threshold pace will be a little faster than the calculation. Not significantly, but a few seconds.

Heart rate is a good tool, but it doesn't control how hard the effort is. If there's a difference between how your body feels and what your heart rate says, go with your body.

I don't really see what the issue is. 160s for threshold & 170s/80s when racing 5k/8k. That checks out to me. Maybe the threshold work is a touch slow. When I race a marathon I'm in the 160s. I'll get into the 170s for a half. Threshold is a touch faster than half marathon. We have a similar max HR. You could prolly push a little more on tempo efforts but I don't think you have anything to worry about.

Do you have the possibility to measure the lactate during threshold interval workouts?

My forerunner estimates my threshold when I do long intervals above the threshold and those estimates are consistent. I basically don't care too much about my heart rate when I run faster /harder than that, but estimates my threshold to be 90% of max HR. I then use this to control my lower than threshold workouts. So I basically only care about the threshold heart rate and not really the max. From experience I have also seen that each stroke of the heart rate translates to 1% change in pace, in fact very consistent. It is easy for me to train by pace and/or heart rate then.

But with your 5k time it is easy to estimate your target pace for slower workouts, not having to care too much of your heart rate, but since your heart rate is consistent you learn to trust your heart rate at different paces and by the feel.

Breath can also be good feedback. I breath in rhythm with my cadence and this also is consistent with the intensity for me.

How many times have you seen that Max of 205? It may have been a glitch of the belt. Tempo/Threshold 20bpm under Max sound reasonable, but 5k/10k race pace should be approaching higher, maybe 6-8bpm under the max?

Use pace and ignore the HR stuff.

thanks for the advice guys, im fairly certain the max is roughly 205 as ive seen over 200 a couple of times, i will follow the advice and carry on training based on breathing/ feel, i wont push harder just because my heart rate seems low, could be due to lower fitness atm, inaccuracies or it could just be the way my threshold heart rate is.

Pony up the cash to get a proper lab test. It's worth it to know your numbers on HR and for the blood sampling to determine your true LT. This really helped my training many years ago.

This is not always correct. If you have dis-balance with heart system vs muscle system (one bigger than other or vise versa), also fast twitch guy/slow twitch guy, than can be a difference.

Jon Arne Glomsrud wrote:

From experience I have also seen that each stroke of the heart rate translates to 1% change in pace, in fact very consistent. It is easy for me to train by pace and/or heart rate then.

Interesting! I don't recall seeing that stated elsewhere.

Are you familiar with the Norwegian 4x4 workout? Although their popular video says to take it to 85-95% HRmax in the 4min rep, one of their papers was citing 90-95% max.