Heart rate vs. training pace vs. race performance

The comparison won't make any sense without knowing the maximum heart rate for each runner.

You seem to be missing a key ingredient - maximum heart rate. Person to person comparisons, if that is what you are after, can only be made by expressing your HR as a percent of maximum. Also, make sure you get a good figure for max. HR, not something that comes from a formula.

how close do you get with good old 220 - age?

by that wouldn't i assume mine is 200?

that is totally normal. It basically shows that your threshold velocity (aerobic in particular, but probably anaerobic as well) occurs at a slower pace than this other guy. What does this mean for your training? Do more volume around this AeT and the pace at which your 150bpm HR occurs will eventually get faster. This other guy having a faster pace at 150bpm is basically a function of faster aerobic threshold and better economy.

That being said, if this other guy is 50 years old, he's probably not running at his AeT at 6:00 pace and a HR of 150bpm, but because he's at a higher %HRmax (presumably) than you, he's probably somewhere closer to AnT pace.

okay thanks for the posts.

no no no, this other guy is also 20 years old.

So basically what you are saying is the other guy (who is the same age as me and runs much faster at the same effort) obviously just is more aerobically developed then i am?

I have average about 50 miles per week over the last year or so and I believe the other guy was saying he runs like 80. Are you suggesting it is safe to assume that if in increase my volume i can expect to develop me aerobic system like his?

Heart rate varies a great deal from person to person. I am 36 years old and this spring ran 15:21 indoors for 5k and a 19:48 track 4 mile time trial. Last year went 31:46 on the roads for 10k. I wore my HRM on my 80 minutes easy days the last few days and my HR average was 116 one day and 118 another. I have worn my HRM on the track on easy runs and it levels out around 124 at 7:00 pace. Doing a 5 mile time trial last fall at 5:05 pace My HR didn't get over 160 until the last few miles and finished at 162. That is pretty much race effort. Mid 150's would be the average for a 40 minute tempo on the 5:15 range.

I have owned a HRM since I was about 24 and my HR max has gone way down in that time. My resting HR is about 38 or 39.

If 162 is race effort you must have a really low max hr.

yes but you are 36 years old. i think that that accounts for most of the varrience here.

concider this

at 20 75% of that other guys hr = about 150bpm.

at 36 75% of your max heart rate = about 138bpm.

you didnt specify anything about your 140ish average range but i bet its not too far off 6:00/mile.

so i am proposing that your aerobic system is pretty close to that other guys.

75% for him is 6:00 pace.

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this is interesting because you guys have similar PRs. 15:30 15:21. I know that aerobic efficiency is just one factor, but the other guy said he dosnt really do much speed work. I am assuming that you dont either because most guys your age dont... but i am just assumning.

interesting for me.

I am a 1500m runner and I donts really do that much speed work but my fair share and I run a 4:01 in the 1500 but my aerobic system is much worse then yours i think

student of the sport wrote:

okay thanks for the posts.

no no no, this other guy is also 20 years old.

So basically what you are saying is the other guy (who is the same age as me and runs much faster at the same effort) obviously just is more aerobically developed then i am?

I have average about 50 miles per week over the last year or so and I believe the other guy was saying he runs like 80. Are you suggesting it is safe to assume that if in increase my volume i can expect to develop me aerobic system like his?

Basically, yes. The other runner has done the volume, over many weeks, months or even years, in order to allow his heart to pump a lot of blood to his working muscles quickly. Now, I'm simplifying things a bit here, but his bigger heart allows him to run at a faster pace than you at the same heart rate because that blood is getting to the working muscles faster in order to supply the necessary energy required to run at that pace. His added volume probably also allows his muscles to use less energy (ie. his economy is better), thus amplifying the differences between velocities at 150bpm.

I'm actually working on a project involving comparing velocities of different runners running up a hill at 150 and 165 bpm, which I hope to have written up in a few months.

This summer I think I will increase the volume and try to increase my running economy. maybe i can go from 6:50 at 150bpm to 6:30 at 150bpm. The trick is (i believe) to make sure not to loose any edge. I mean I still want to have some speed as I think in an 8k that would help a lot.

yeah that heart rate thing is bogus... on a number of different instruments i have broken that while working on. on a treadmil (not accurate i know i know) during the winter i ran some fartleks with 6mi total running and 3 x .75@ 5:20 pace and at the end i was over up to 200... at age 24. with one of those blasted hrm watch contraptions i have done this in interval workouts as well.

in general i say base your training off of your last race. this has always been what worked for me. when i trained based on what i thought or what i wanted to run i found that i didnt get as good of results as when i based my paces (loosely off of j daniels...not married to it though) off of a combination of my last two races at different distances.

I am the OP of the other thread. I think that my efficiency at easy paces is extremely high - I am only 5'6, weigh 115 dripping wet, and have almost a year of 60-80mpw behind me after coming back from a layoff. However, I do tie up pretty badly at faster paces, and my efficiency at speeds faster than 5k pace is probably less than yours. I ran a recent 5k in 15:50 after dying horribly because I went out in 69,71 the first two laps - not insanely fast by most 15:30 runners standards, but for me it shut my legs down instantly.

i have nothing against that. heart rate is not something you HAVE TO USE inorder to train at the right effort. but it is not bogus. just because yours was really high OR the one you used wasnt working properly dosnt mean it is a bogus resources to throw out the window.

I have a question when I am boosting up volume this summer...

some days when i run at 150bpm i am (for lack of sleep/recovering from a workout/it is hot/or some random unknown reason) way slower then my usual 6:50. In fact, some days I am a lot slower like 7:30/mile.

what would you suggest is best on these days? cut the volume? run the same volume at a slow pace? increase the pace and ignore effort?

it seems to me like the best thing would be just run the same volume at the same effort and just let the pace be slow. I still get the same benefit even though my body that day isnt at its best... right?

that would be my suggestion. I wouldn't be a slave to "150" on the HRM (ie. if it's 153, I wouldn't worry too much about it, for example) but yes, you probably should back off the intensity a bit during these scenarios.

okay so you are pretty dang aerobically efficient (150bpm = 6:00/mile) but you havent got much speed and/or capibilities to race. even though you are a little guy it seems like since you are only 20 that if you build up your speed while maintain this arobic effiecency you can imrpove your 5k time a lot. No big killer workouts, just race-specific stuff like mile repeats or quarters and drills and strides to increase power and race efficiency.

for me i havent got the best speed in the world but i am 4:03 in the 1500 which isnt bad concidering the fastest 5k i ever ran was 16:20. since i am 7:00/mile when i run at 150bpm it seems like if i maintain speed and form and efficiency for race specific stuff, and bring aerobic efficency up to 6:00/mile for 150bpm, then i should be able to not only improve my 5k significanly, but my 1500 too.

good luck to you thump thump. i suggest improving the speed, power, and race specific capibilites for awhile and only focusing on maintainign your aerobic capibilites.

hello sub 15 sub 3:50 for the both of us.

What is weird is that when I first bought a heart monitor in 1995, the same paces would produce much higher heart rates. I remember seeing 170's at the same paces that are low 160's now. I think I saw it at 180 once when I wore it in a small road race the week I bought it. I have a friend (who is faster than I am) who is 1 year older and he might see 180's during a workout when he borrows it from me, but his resting rate is way higher as well.

I remember in about 1999 I considred tempo effort to start in the mid-high 160's and level out about 170 by the end. I don't see any heart rates like that any more but I haven't really gotten slower.

"this is interesting because you guys have similar PRs. 15:30 15:21."

15:21 isn't my PR. I have been under 15:00. I only ran one track race this year and it was early and indoors. I went 15:08 last year on a pretty windy day. That was just my fastest recent performance in a race. I split that in a 4 mile time trial 6 weeks later outdoors.

I was doing intervals more or less twice a week from Jan. to about late March.

I think the highest HR I have seen in the past year was trying to do 6 miles on the treadmill at 5:00 pace (who knows if it is accurate, just fun to try). At the end of this my HR was 164. I think the lack of pounding and the negation of my economy problems by the regulatiry of the treadmill allows me to work a bit harder. I was utterly licked after that - it was certainly race effort.

I notice that as my pace gets below 5:10 or so things feel much harder. I can go to the track alone and run 5:12 pace for 7 miles more or less at will, but racing 5k on the roads at 5:00 pace is challenging. I even notice on the track that my HR just significantly for every second under 5:10 pace I run. Maybe my economy just falls apart at faster paces because I am so ungainly.