Heart rate and pace training

A bit more information is needed to determine your current fitness.

How long have you been running in a consistent manner?

How far do you run for any given run?

How often do you run?

Height and weight?

Resting heart rate?

Sub 5min/mi. pace for a 10k? Is that a typo?

If going strictly by MHR you should be using 123-143 BPM for what would be an "easy" run. This is the fat burning aerobic zone. If may be difficult to keep the heart rate from going above this zone for your current fitness/running economy. If this is the case consider using run/walk intervals to keep the heart rate down until. As your fitness improves you should be able to eliminate the walk breaks. Consider running at least 4 times a week and running 45-60mins. Since it seems like you are able to run for more than an hour you should be able to do this without any problem.

I'm assuming that the 180-188 HR was towards the end of your 10k run. If so, then you're not fit enough to run as fast as you ran for for 10 kilometers. You're going anaerobic towards the end of the run, which causes HR to spike up well above your aerobic threshold.

Yes, a 10k at 12:29 pace indicates you're not in very good shape. Actually, anything at 12:29 would indicate poor running fitness, but you can improve.

I assume you meant 10k in sub 50 minutes. That's very possible at age 40.

A bit more information is needed to determine your current fitness.

How long have you been running in a consistent manner?

Almost 2 years.

How far do you run for any given run?

Depends. 2 miles at least. Up to 8 miles.

How often do you run?

2x a week, another day spend doing non-running cardio.

Height and weight?

5-10, 175

Resting heart rate?

In the mid 60s

My warm up HR is 120-135.

The typical formulas (220-age, etc) don't work with me. At 40yo I can clock an HR of 205 for >15min and still be functional. I'm a firefighter so it happens frequently.

"I'm assuming that the 180-188 HR was towards the end of your 10k run."

No the entire run was like that. It was on rolling prairie land.

I ran a 5k in 29:29 (9:31/mi) in October. I've podiumed in my age group on a 5k trail run. And did 4.3 at a sub 10 pace more recently than that.

In the past I just run, and don't try to keep it aerobic or in any other sort of HR zone. Now I'm trying to build up more aerobic distance, but I have to almost walk. It's confusing.

"I assume you meant 10k in sub 50 minutes."

No. I mean sub 5:00 pace - so 6.2 miles in under 30 min. It's a goal to shoot for. A challenge, but not impossible.

What's your 10k lifetime PB?

Based on what you've shared so far I would say sub-30 is beyond fantasy and somewhere in the realm of parallel universe for someone who is not you. It's good to be realistic about these things. Sorry.

My answers are within the quote.

If you want to get faster, you need to transition to running more days per week. Two isn't enough. At our age, we detrain too quickly to make much progress on 2 days a week. If running is a priority, move up 4, then 5, and eventually 6 days a week.

I don't know how fast you can get for a 10K, but the journey to finding out what your maximum is can be interesting and enjoyable.

Given all of your info...just jog if you feel up to it. Your main concern should be weight control and not 30:00 10k's. Have fun with jogging and let that be the end of it.

Fisky - With an MHR like you suggest, and aerobic zone at 188, it almost sounds like I've got the HR capacity of an 18 year old. Can that be right?

I am a firefighter (and one at a busy, active station, not riding an ambulance or sitting around). So my overall fitness has been assessed to be Superior. If those numbers are right, then it's more superior than I or the assessment lab thought.

Yes I realize I probably will never hit a sub 5:00 pace on a 10k. But I push for a 30:00 10k I'll be more apt to hit a 40:00 10k. See the idea? Set the goal just out of reach to keep stretching.

Thank you Fisky and Reality Czech

Main concern weight control? I compete at the elite level of OCRs. Not enough to podium one (yet) but a contender for my age group (which I delineated further). I think I'll be happy pushing myself to see how well I can do. But thanks for the advice.

There is a lot of variability in MHR among individuals. Although your MHR might be the same as your average 18yo it is not at all an indication of your fitness or capacity. I assume that you self determined your MHR on the treadmill. It is very taxing and uncomfortable to determine your MHR and it is possible that you came up short and your MHR might be higher.

Two runs a week is not consistent enough and your runs probably need to be longer. Shoot for at least 45min of running but closer to 60min would be better. Do not build up your mileage (or time running) too quickly or you risk injury. Your body needs to get used to running. Seriously, do not push too much too quickly. You do not appear to be a Clydesdale, but loosing a few pounds will help with your running economy and performance. If you do the proper training, weight loss will probably come with the territory.

Heart rate based training.

You are training for a 10k or at least would like to improve your 10k performance. This is an endurance event and so you will need to train for endurance. When use HR as a guide you will want to train in zone 2 and this is where you should be for an "easy" run. Heart rate zones 1-3 are considered aerobic with zone 2 the best for training your aerobic endurance also called fat burning zone. There are a few different ways to determine these zones and they do result in different heart rates for a given zone. Personally I go by % heart rate reserve and not by % MHR. You can check the different methods of determining the training zones to see how they align with your perceived level of effort. Putting HR aside for the moment, how would you train in zone 2 without a HRM? The first method was already mentioned and that is to run at a pace where you are breathing hard but not so hard that you can maintain a conversation. If your conversation is broken up with you having to take a breath every couple words, you are running too fast. Another way is to use one of the pace calculators to determine the proper training pace. Using your recent 5k performance, your easy pace should be in the 12:30 - 11:40. Run more consistently and after some time you will see improvement. Either your pace will be faster for a given heart rate or your heart rate will be lower for the same pace. It takes a while though. You could see increased fitness over the period of a couple of years.

HR Zone calculator

http://www.fitdigits.com/personalized-heart-rate-zones.html

Pace Calculators

http://runsmartproject.com/calculator/

https://www.mcmillanrunning.com/

hale1114 wrote:

With an MHR like you suggest, and aerobic zone at 188, it almost sounds like I've got the HR capacity of an 18 year old. Can that be right?

Main concern weight control?

HR capacity of an 18 year old? Yes.Your heart will have pretty much the same functionality as when you were young. Your high heart rate indicates low blood (plasma) volume, but this is just water storage which increaseas a lot when you work out regularly and sweat a lot. This in turn greatly improves endurance potential because you can sweat more and therefore run a lot more at the same pace.

So your heart rates go down. Max heart rate goes down 10 beats or so, as do working heart rates for the same effort and resting heart rates goes down a lot.

Weight control, again yes, losing the excess fat leads to big improvements. Compare the stride length and stride rate of lean versus medium build runners who do the same mileage... big difference. I use the JEL diet* works wonders.

Happy running

*Just Eat Less.

this post is dumb wrote:

You give OCR runners a terrible bad bad name. Please just stop.

It's a fool that doesn't seek help. The good athletes reach out for advice and coaching, and encourage those trying to improve. Those that fail do so by themselves, and only build themselves up by trying to insult others (-trying. Nice hiding behind an anonymous screen name).

this post is dumb wrote:

It's not about trying to seek help, it's about how outlandish you sound. You've barely broken 30 for a measly 5K. That is horrifically slow, and you claim your goal is now double that distance and the same time? It's so far outside of the realm of possibility. This is how most crossfit and OCR athletes think. They have no idea of the concept of how tough running actually is. It's a slap in the face to hard working runners every where for you to even think that's something that's possible. Please go away.

Sorry to offend your running greatness by trying to improve my health and athletic performance. Didn't realize it would touch an elitist nerve. You don't have to read this post. Go outside and run.

For the rest of you who've been helpful I appreciate it. I'm sorry any athletic community has such bad representatives.

Me too. I was in your position and I did what I'm suggesting. I went from a 24 minute 5k to 15 minutes in just three years. And when I was your age I was still improving. There are some $hitheads on letsrun, but you gave that one a good comeback, well done you.