Help with heart rate running

No.

1) Get a HR chest strap. You will be chasing your tail with a wrist based monitor.

2) It is normal for it to take some time to get up to target HR. You shouldn’t be trying to get there as quickly as possible. Ease into the run in such a way that you hit your target HR after 5 or so minutes. You should then find that you get faster at that Hr as your body warms up before leveling off after a few miles.

Heart rate will need some time during the first 5-10 min to get going. It depends on the target speed. For me when I do threshold pace I need 6-7 min. If I do easy runs, much earlier. But this might be individually. What this means is that you should hit the pace that gives the desired heart rate at 10-15min into the workout. You will over time learn what the pace should be and I would use both HR over time and the pace you usually hit.

One extra thing to look for is something called cardiac drift. This is a tendency that the HR steadily increases through the workout even if the pace is constant. At least in hot conditions this can happen. If the HR increases during the workout but the pace is constant it can be this effect. Don't worry and the right thing to do is trust the pace and let the HR drift. At least the heat effect can be explained with that more blood is needed to cool down and then the heart need to work harder to both deliver oxygen to the muscles and to coold down. Slowing down (if you still feel fine) actually is to lower the intensity.

HR sometimes varies over days and weeks naturally. it could be some strokes higher og lower, but i would not worry too much and try to follow approx the HR as I indicate above.

Over time you can learn quite well the intensity by feel. The feeling in the legs, in the breathing, the HR and the pace you hit.

I have run a lot in terrain where pace cannot be used and trusted my HR. Nowadays I run roads and trust my feel, my breathing, the pace and mainly let the HR be what it is. But my HR is very steady and predictable, and drifts none as I run in cool weather. Still, it varies, and especially gets lower if I do a lot of training. If I were to hit an HR then I would run too hard. So I trust my feel and pace.

No.

As highhoppingworm said, get a HR chest strap. Wrist monitors are notoriously inaccurate.

Example 1: You want to warm up and then run at the pace you can hold for 5 miles at 137 BPM or slower. In your case, you might start out at 4.0 for 2-3 minutes, then increase to 4.6 and watch your HR gradually climb up. You don't need to hit exactly 137... it's a guess anyway. If, after the first 10 minutes, you're only at 132 or so, then increase the pace to 4.8. If you're at 135, that's close enough. You want to make it to the end of the run without slowing down to keep your HR within the 137 BPM. If you have to slow down, you're either not fit enough to run 5 miles or you're running too fast.

Example 2: Warm-up as above for two miles. Then run at the pace that you think you can hold with your HR at 165. You might try 6.1 mph. If you're not close to 165 after 10 minutes, then increase the pace very slightly. The idea is to eventually find the pace that you can hold for the 20 minute tempo at HR 165 without slowing down.

Once you find those paces for Examples 1 and 2, those will be your training paces for those runs. Over time as you get fitter, you will be able to run faster at the same HR.

If you're using the wrist based HR of your watch, you should not pay attention to the values it gives, even if the Apple Watch is one of the best/less terrible for a measure through the wrist.

HR Zones are also based on your Maximum heart rate, which is quite often way off the 220-age formula.

Easy pace is based on effort, you should be able to have a normal conversation with someone running with you. When you're done with an easy run, you should not feel tired. As an indication, VDOT tables predict a range of 10'20-11'20 minutes par mile as an easy pace for your level (~5,5mph).

Tempo pace should be slightly slower than your 10K pace (5-10" per mile slower).

If you really want to use heart rate training, use a chest strap or armbands some companies (Polar for example) make. Mesure your max, then if you have a target HR, you don't want to reach it until the last third of your session.

I've used a garmin with a strap for 12+ years and recently started using the series 6 Apple Watch (about 2 months). My experience is that, if it is well fitted on the wrist, I get virtually identical results as I did with the chest strap. Once, it got hijacked by cadence on a steep downhill. But then I also had HR strap issue at times as well (bad reading on cold dry mornings). Anyway, to say ignore the HR value seems extreme to me. Of course, it's easy for me to say that 'cause I know what my HR should look like after all those years being strapped up. (Full disclosure: I shaved the hair off my wrist under the watch... yeah, I'm that geeky.)

As for the other OP questions, I agree with what everyone else had said. Training by HR sounds like it should be so scientific and objective, but there are just as many HR training caveats as there are for training by pace, or feel, or astrological sign.

One more point. You are assuming that 137 and 165 are right for you. They might be, but chances are that they are off by several beats. The formula 220-age= Max HR can be way off. For me, it's off by 37 beats!

Your tempo HR is more important than your recovery HR. Recovery HR is that rate you should stay below on recovery runs. LTHR is the HR you should NOT go above on your tempo runs. You can determine your upper tempo zone HR (your LTHR... lactate threshold heart rate) by doing a google search for Joe Friel LTHR or Joe Friel Heart Rate Method.

Thanks everyone for your input here, much appreciated.

From the responses so far, some people have been saying to reach target heart rate after 5 mins, others say 10-15 mins, and one post said the final third of the run. Is there an accepted time or does it vary by runner?

Coach... in fairness you live in a very warm climate l. I find that cadence lock is about a 50/50 occurrence once the weather drops below 50 degrees.

I trained with several different kinds of Garmins that used a chest strap from 2006 through 2018, then switched to a Garmin 235 that is wrist-based HR. Except for the fact that it can't sometimes initially find resting HR (in which case, just turn it off and then turn it back on), it's just as accurate.

BUT: you have to strap it tightly to your wrist. When problems & anomalies happen, they almost always result from not having it strapped tightly enough. If you think it's strapped right, try one notch tighter.

The max HR formulas are indeed worse than useless. And most slow/beginning runners will find it impossible to establish a true max HR, since it requires a substantial warm up, some sort of sustained tempo pace, and then a super-hard interval or two, sustained for at least 90 seconds at a time. (Running a solid 5K with the hardest possible kick in the final quarter mile will get you very close to max--but that kick has to be brutal.)

I've profited greatly from HR training. But it's an art, not a science.

andyg555 wrote:

Thanks everyone for your input here, much appreciated.

From the responses so far, some people have been saying to reach target heart rate after 5 mins, others say 10-15 mins, and one post said the final third of the run. Is there an accepted time or does it vary by runner?

I'd urge any runner to start off every run gently, keeping it gentle for at least the first mile or two. I'm fond of out and back runs, ranging from 3 miles to, back in the day, 15-18 miles. In every case, the halfway point was the place where, if faster running was going to take place, I'd begin to pick up the pace. What's noticeable is how much easier a given HR is at the halfway point than the same HR would have felt at five or ten minutes in. It's uncanny, really. So give your body a chance to really warm up, and always start very gently. Do this and you'll sometimes find yourself having those strong, almost effortless return legs where you're really flying.

Ok, so here’s an update on my latest run today. I had a go at slowly reaching my target zone and keeping my HR there until the end of the run. Here is how I did...

Run: 5 miles “steady”

Target HR zone: 143-155 bpm

0 mins - 75 bpm

0-3 mins - 4.5 mph, 115 bpm

3-7 mins - 5 mph, 123 bpm

7-10 mins - 5.5 mph, 135 bpm

10-15 mins - 5.8 mph, 140 bpm

17 mins - 6 mph, 143 bpm

17-38 mins - 6 mph, 143-155 bpm (target zone)

39 mins - 6 mph, 156 bpm (above target)

39-52 mins - 6 mph, 155-159 bpm

So as you can see, I worked up to 6 mph, stayed in my target HR zone for 21 minutes, and drifted above my target HR zone for the final 13 minutes by 0-4 bpm.

Did I do this right? Should I have picked a lower speed? Any and all advice appreciated. Thanks!

Yep, I think you may be right.

andyg555 wrote:

Ok, so here’s an update on my latest run today. I had a go at slowly reaching my target zone and keeping my HR there until the end of the run. Here is how I did...

Run: 5 miles “steady”

Target HR zone: 143-155 bpm

0 mins - 75 bpm

0-3 mins - 4.5 mph, 115 bpm

3-7 mins - 5 mph, 123 bpm

7-10 mins - 5.5 mph, 135 bpm

10-15 mins - 5.8 mph, 140 bpm

17 mins - 6 mph, 143 bpm

17-38 mins - 6 mph, 143-155 bpm (target zone)

39 mins - 6 mph, 156 bpm (above target)

39-52 mins - 6 mph, 155-159 bpm

So as you can see, I worked up to 6 mph, stayed in my target HR zone for 21 minutes, and drifted above my target HR zone for the final 13 minutes by 0-4 bpm.

Did I do this right? Should I have picked a lower speed? Any and all advice appreciated. Thanks!

Andy, what you did sounds fine. The last bit of advice that I would give you is to not get so bogged down in the details.

Improvement in running comes from the activity that you're doing, not from "following the plan." Do that make sense? For example, your body doesn't know that your brain wants you to be running at 145 rather than 140. Your improvement doesn't come from "doing it right;" it comes from doing it. A few beats per minute on an easy run for a few minutes more or less are not going to matter. For the vast majority of runners, close enough is good enough. Have fun!

andyg555 wrote:

Ok, so here’s an update on my latest run today. I had a go at slowly reaching my target zone and keeping my HR there until the end of the run. Here is how I did...

Run: 5 miles “steady”

Target HR zone: 143-155 bpm

0 mins - 75 bpm

0-3 mins - 4.5 mph, 115 bpm

3-7 mins - 5 mph, 123 bpm

7-10 mins - 5.5 mph, 135 bpm

10-15 mins - 5.8 mph, 140 bpm

17 mins - 6 mph, 143 bpm

17-38 mins - 6 mph, 143-155 bpm (target zone)

39 mins - 6 mph, 156 bpm (above target)

39-52 mins - 6 mph, 155-159 bpm

So as you can see, I worked up to 6 mph, stayed in my target HR zone for 21 minutes, and drifted above my target HR zone for the final 13 minutes by 0-4 bpm.

Did I do this right? Should I have picked a lower speed? Any and all advice appreciated. Thanks!

That looks pretty good. The word "steady," used in training logs, falls within a continuum of impressionistic words: recovery, easy, steady, tempo, hard. Also the word "progression."

What you did wasn't recovery, which denotes a very easy, deliberately easy, jog taken the day after a harder run which has the training purpose of remaining gently aerobic and taking nothing out of you, simply helping you recover from the previous day and then setting you up for the following day's harder run.

Easy is a bread and butter run and suggests that at no point are you pushing it, just putting in the miles.

Steady, in that continuum, suggests a somewhat harder run, where most or some--at least half--of the run is done at a sub-threshold pace. HR is elevated above easy, but effort is in no way "breathless," or even pushing at threshold. I'd say that steady for me is in the 82-85% of max HR range, with 85% being marathon pace. Maybe even up to 87%. Some people call this pace long tempo pace or 20-mile pace (which would be faster than 26 mile pace, which would be, duh, marathon pace. 20 mile pace would be the pace you could race 20 miles at.)

It seems as though you got into that range during that 17-38 minute block. You worked towards and then held something like steady pace.

I like progression runs of this sort--and that's what one might also call your run: a progression run. Not a hard progression run, although in that last 13 minutes, you WERE running at something closer to half-marathon pace, which is a kind of tempo pace.

How do you feel? If your legs are slightly sore the following day, that's ok, but it meant that you ran a bit faster than steady pace, especially in that last 13 minutes. Take a recovery day. If it takes two days for that soreness to go away, you ran to hard in that last 13 minutes.

HR training can begin to help you tune in more precisely to these energy levels; these increasing degress of "push."