Background:I’m in my forties and started running regularly for the first time in life about 10 months back. I’m still a very slow runner with poor endurance (7’40” 1 mile time, 27’ 5K, hour+ 10K). My lack of speed endurance doesn’t particularly bother me as I enjoy the activity and it gives me a good workout.
Problem:My problem is that my HR as well as perceived effort are not going down over time at all. If I jog a mile or more, however slowly, my HR is at least in the 160s and more likely into the 170s. On a really good day, I have run a 10K at 10’ pace holding a 167 average HR but that’s rare. Just yesterday, my average HR for a 5K at 10’10’ pace was 174. I believe my max HR is 190 or so based on the max I’ve ever observed during training (not an actual lab test).
Predicament:My understanding is that I should just run more to improve endurance, but that I should also run easy. I can’t run “easy” for more than a mile, not by my HR at least. So it feels like a chicken and egg problem. I either have to do most runs hard and risk injury or not run much at all and be stuck. I’ve tried long durations of run walking especially during injury recovery, but that doesn’t seem to improve either speed or endurance. Perceived effortwise, I’m almost always breathing through my nose and find it comfortably hard when my HR remains in the 160s, but do start to feel increasingly tired in the 170s, and probably can’t go on for more than a few minutes in the 180s which is also when I’m forced to start mouth breathing.
Goal: I’d like to be able to do an easy 30-60 min continuous jog with a heart rate in the 150s or lower (a HR range that feels breezy pleasant). I don’t care about speed, but I find that I do need to maintain at least 11’30” to 12’ pace to maintain a half decent form feeling like I’m even running as opposed to awkwardly hobbling. How do I get to my goal of being able to do long easy jogs without training hard all the time like I’m currently forced to because I have no other way of running except running hard?