Average heart rate during runs

It's not the average of the whole run. HR is going to be lower for the first mile or two, but then it should stabilize within a beat or two. If your HR goes up several beats over the last mile, then you're running harder than LT pace. You should do your next LT run starting at a slightly slower pace.

In hot weather, a phenomenon called HR creep will occur where your HR goes up a few beats per minute as blood is shunted away from the muscles to the capillaries near the skin for a cooling effect.

How much HR increase is HR creep and how much is running too hard? I don't know. In my experience, 2-3 beats are HR creep and more than that is running faster than my LT threshold.

fisky wrote:

It's not the average of the whole run. HR is going to be lower for the first mile or two, but then it should stabilize within a beat or two. If your HR goes up several beats over the last mile, then you're running harder than LT pace. You should do your next LT run starting at a slightly slower pace.

In hot weather, a phenomenon called HR creep will occur where your HR goes up a few beats per minute as blood is shunted away from the muscles to the capillaries near the skin for a cooling effect.

How much HR increase is HR creep and how much is running too hard? I don't know. In my experience, 2-3 beats are HR creep and more than that is running faster than my LT threshold.

This. If your goal is to run in a particular zone, then the bulk of your run should be in that zone with the odd spike here or there.

The only question I have is if the OP really knows their LTHR or max HR. I can't imagine running at 95% of max HR for two miles within a 4 mile run. I guess I really am a hobbyjogger.

OP here, thanks so much about for the advice. The high heart rate is usually only dramatically higher in hot and humid conditions. In the winter, it's much more even.