What percentage of max heart rate should your marathon pace be? At the lower end of lactate threshold (80% of max?) or below this range?
What percentage of max heart rate should your marathon pace be? At the lower end of lactate threshold (80% of max?) or below this range?
It depends on your marathon time. If you're a 2:00 guy, it's in the 89-90% range, but if you're in the 3:00 range it's 85-86%.
runny wrote:What percentage of max heart rate should your marathon pace be? At the lower end of lactate threshold (80% of max?) or below this range?An optimal HR is most likely the highest average HR you can sustain for the entire race. Typically this would reflect an evenly paced race.
If you are aerobically well-trained, your average HR for the marathon will be in the narrow range of 87-90% of HRmax. I have HR data from a number of runners to demonstrate this, and have posted the details in a couple of older threads that I can't find (probably a couple of years ago).
HR will increase throughout the race, generally, passing the average value somewhere around 13-15 miles, and then slowly levelling off a little higher. If you run out of fuel in the later miles (hit the wall) HR will actually start to drop.
In runners who are not aerobically fit (optimally fit), you will not get as high as 87-90% of HRmax as an average.
I should just add that the HR data I mentioned were for runners with times between 2:31 and 3:35ish. Average HR had no correlation with finish time in that sample of 10-12 runners. It was always between 87-90% of HRmax.
Don't think so much, Just Run. Some thing suffer from overanalysis.