Tracking improvement with HR

Firsties! That's about the third time for me in the last two days. I couln't help myself. I just missed seeing that.

JL, I'm also in my early 30s. I've been using an HR monitor for about 2 years now. Here's a couple of tips that I hope will help you ...1. Tracking you're resting HR is one measure of aerobic improvement. Simply take your resting HR once a week or so and monitor its decline. Obviously, it'll bottom out at some point and discontinue providing a gauge for improvement.2. Don't just multiple your desired effort level percentage by your Max HR. This doesn't translate effectively for running. Use your Heart Rate Reserve, which is ...

Target HR = ((Max HR - Resting HR) * Effort Level %) + Resting HR

Example: assumeing 50 as your resting HR.

153/154 = ((188 - 50) .75) + 50

3. Log your runs. Tracking your mileage, pace, and HR will help you draw better conclusions on your progress. Checkout

for a full fledge running log.

4. Take your HR with a grain of salt. Many external factors can effect your HR on a given day, such as weather, previous day's workload, and hydration level.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. There's a tons of ways to use your HR to shape workouts and improve your performance. Feel free to drop me a line with any questions.

I have a serious suggestion JL. Run more miles. It's not the monitor. Run moe miles, moe miles.

lemme echo what 16x said,

log more miles (at 75% or lower - that may be different than 16x would suggest), and you WILL (I guarantee it) see the pace at 75% (and higher %) pick up. GUARANTEED. I promise.

lemmo echo... more miles. No need to rush it, but do build it.

But, just for grins, run an 8 to 10 miler at a constant pace and record the HR. Or, you can run at a constant HR and note the pace. Either way, you'll have a benchmark from which to see improvement.

He didn't ask how to improve, but how to track improvement with an HR monitor. Noone disputes that adding more mileage will improve your performance.

Thanks David and others for the replies....

I was mostly curious about what kind of increases I might expect to see over a certain time frame, running at a set HR and tracking the pace (average over several runs, never just one)

For example, since my current 140%MHR pace is right around 9:30 on average, spanning ~25 miles over the course of a few days, I wonder what I should expect that pace to drop to in, say, 3 months. maybe 9:00?, maybe much more conservative like 9:20?

I guess the more I think about it, the more I think that the only way I can find out is to simply do it.

David, I'm also wondering about that HRreserve formula. My resting HR is 55, so the target HR (at 75% effort level) using that formula is 155,...quite a bit more intense compared to the 140bpm that is calculated from the straight %MHR formula. Is 75% too high to use as an effort level to calculate 'easy running, long run, recovery-ish' paces when using the HR reserve formula you gave me?

I have been keeping a log all along (just passed 1000 miles total last week, woo!) but I just recently started to include HR data, so I have no 'hard evidence' to compare to (yet).

Thanks again

sorry,...duh,...140%MHR(!!!),...that should be 140bpm, @75%MHR!

JL, use these range HRR ranges for different paces ...

It's tough to tell you how you will improve and how quickly. Just guessing by your max HR and your resting HR, that you still have some room to improve aerobically. Don't be surprised to see your HR go down to 45ish.

Glad to hear that you're logging your mileage. It's a great way to spot patterns that produced PRs. Obviously, I'm a fan of electronically logging your runs as you can easily search and aggregate your log. Either way, keep logging.

Of course, as everyone else mentioned, slowly increasing your mileage is the surest way to see improvement, which should be reflected in your resting HR. During your base mileage days be sure to mix in some steady state days, as they'll keep the hip flexors fresh. In addition, steady state runs are a boon for your aerobic fitness.

This isn't HR monitor related, but I think a good way to gauge fitness is to find a nice loop in the woods that will take you roughly an hour to complete running fast. Don't measure it, that would defeat the point. You don't care how fast per mile you are running, you care about running your ass off for an hour in the woods. Do this every few months or so (even in the snow if it snows where you are), and you'll have your own invented gauge of fitness without the pressure of the per mile stop-watch. I've done this with good personal success - it's nice to think, "Wow, I ran that loop 30 seconds faster than 8 months ago and there was an inch of snow on the ground this time." I find this method works best when training is getting stagnate or you are feeling languid.

Of course I feel the need to find an alternative way of finding out where I am because I am a headcase and road races and track workouts are detrimental until I have full confidence...so not the point, but anyway, that's my three pence.

anyone have any comments on this?

Thanks yet again David for the kind help. One last (that I can think of at the moment) question for you:

In a base building stage, for a 1 yr 'veteran' such as myself, how would you recommend I allocate my weekly milegage, divided between the easy, long run, recovery miles and the steady state miles?,...50-50? 75-25?, other?

I'm planning on doing the same marathon again next year in early march, so I still got LOTS of base building to go, heh.

JL,

if the marathon is what you're after, my suggestion would be to keep 90-95% of your miles at 75% or slower, until you're a few months out from the marathon, and then start to add some faster stuff in a systematic way. This has worked very well for me this year.

Read the Hadd thread, and some of the other training threads, to get a better idea of some of the details that might work for you.

K, I'll keep a look out for some other training threads, there's a lot of interesting info around here to sift through...

When you say 90-95% running done at 75% or slower, do you calculate the 75% HR directly from MHR only or from HRreserve as was described earlier in this thread? At my pace, I can barely imagine shuffling (loafing?) through nearly ALL my miles at that 9:30 pace (75%HRmax, 140bpm) that I'm currently at. However, I'd be quite happy to do all of my base running at or under 75%HRreserve (155bpm), more of a nice and moderately easy, rather than annoyingly easy pace, heh

Thx

Pete's right, you'll want to do most of your base mileage in the easy range. I'd go like this ...

Monday -> 65% - 75%

Tuesday -> 70% - 80%

Wednesday -> 65% - 75%

Thursday -> 70% - 80%

Friday -> 65% - 75%

Saturday (long run) 60% - 75%

Sunday -> 60% - 70%

The percents are of HRR and you can shift the days at your leisure. Tuesday and Thursday are mainly steady state days, while Saturday is your long run. Sunday, we take it down a notch to help with recovery from the long run. Three additional points ...

1. Always warm up around the 60% range. Very important.

2. Always start your run at the lower end of the range. As you progress through your run and fatigue or/and dehydrate, you're HR will move up.

3. Once again take your HR with a grain of salt as many exteral factors can effect it.

Keep the questions coming if you've got them.

One way is to run 2400m with various heart rates. For example, you could do 2400 repeats at 140, 150, 160, 170 and 175 with about one minute rests to record your times. Don't worry if on the first lap you can't keep the exact HR. You could do this test every 6 weeks in the same conditions.

Full story behind the link.

I use time trials (3200, 5000 and 7km cc) every other week to track my progress, and then do the Hadd test occasionally. Can't answer your question on what is significant progress... I have no clue. I'm happy if I break my earlier PRs.

Thank you David for the extra details, looks like some good guidelines. Not a big fan of rest days, are ya? :)

As for Hadd,

I read (and printed out) the entire 6 part article. It seems like a sound plan,...I just (strongly) question my patience to really work exclusively on maximizing my pace at super low HRs (maxHR 188 - 50 = 138 = plodding shuffle steps for me.

For less experienced runners, when recommened training paces start to get around 10:00+, I wonder if the aerobic benefits are outweighed by increased chances of injury with poor form

If this pace were closer to, say, 9:00, I'd be all over it. I suspect it may take me *quite* a while to increase my (maxHR-50) pace by a full minute or more. ::shrug::

I don't have time to find it, but Hadd has said that he would never advocate running slower than 8:30-9:00.

I don't know what to do with myself on days that I don't run. I save them for cutback weeks or days prior to big races.

Actually, I only use 60% for my warm-ups, and quickly progress to somewhere between 65% and 70%. That's my choice easy pace. I, also, enjoy 75% to 80% when my legs are feeling good.

Once and awhile, if you're feeling really good, let yourself pick it up to 85% over the last mile-plus. Great way to air out the legs during your base phase.

I recall that statement, too, JEH. I think it had to do with the fact that there are rare cases where individuals are so poorly trained or had other factors so that they end up at 10 min/mile at the target HR. In such cases, as I recall, he advocated exceeding the absolute HR zones, as long as it was still subjectively easy, until the HR dropped more or less into the right zone at pace. This was not an excuse to go out and make easy days into 'only kind of hard' days, but just to emphasize that yes, you can go too slow.

As to the original question, I've seen some improvement, but not a whole heck of a lot, in my 'easy' HR pace. As I started mixing in the harder workouts, however, I'd have mornings where my HR and pace were better and other days where I was a little tired or dehydrated, etc., and it was not as good. For me, I'm judging improvement more by the fact that I'm running 70 MPW or more and it feels as easy as 40 used to feel, as well as by steadily improving long LT runs at higher HRs.