Forums >General Running>Oddball heartrate question...
FRIGGIN GREAT! Sarcasm intended. After 2 months of base training and only 1 real speed workout (running, anyways) in that time, I set ANOTHER new max heart rate today. 198, and it was 40 degrees!!! I'm 42 years old, My heart shouldn't know how to beat that fast. It was in a 5k that I only did as the start line was at the school across the street from my house. After 3 miles of running faster than I thought I could (by over 15 seconds per mile with virtually only low heart rate training for 2 months, read zone 1-2  but feeling fine, despite my best effort, I was getting outkicked at the line (I've never been outkicked in a 5k). So do I have to redefine my training zones?
http://connect.garmin.com/group/286133
Oh well, I won my age group an set an over 40 PR of 23:18. I actually haven't seen that time in 15 years, but then again, I haven't been running regularly in about that long either. And by regularly I mean 2-3 times a week for 6 months or more at a stretch.
First, don't worry about the heart rate thing.
On the kick (and I've had similar mind bending experiences where a half dozen guys ran away from me at the end of a 1500 - I was late 20s and all of them were 17-20)
If you're getting older and better cardio shape, two things are happening:
1. You're older than you were. And training slow. This is the best way to get faster, but your kick will fade, this is fact. Unless track racing is really important to you, the amount of sprint and plyo work to try and keep your kick is not worth it - you certainly won't be able to train as well for longer distances if you're doing that.
2. This is a 2 year PB. You're both finishing with faster people and taking more out of your muscles before the end, so you can't kick as well. This is not a bad thing.
FRIGGIN GREAT! Sarcasm intended. After 2 months of base training and only 1 real speed workout (running, anyways) in that time, I set ANOTHER new max heart rate today. 198, and it was 40 degrees!!! I'm 42 years old, My heart shouldn't know how to beat that fast. It was in a 5k that I only did as the start line was at the school across the street from my house. After 3 miles of running faster than I thought I could (by over 15 seconds per mile with virtually only low heart rate training for 2 months, read zone 1-2  but feeling fine, despite my best effort, I was getting outkicked at the line (I've never been outkicked in a 5k). So do I have to redefine my training zones? http://connect.garmin.com/group/286133 Oh well, I won my age group an set an over 40 PR of 23:18. I actually haven't seen that time in 15 years, but then again, I haven't been running regularly in about that long either. And by regularly I mean 2-3 times a week for 6 months or more at a stretch.
Consistently Slow
The person passing you may not have run hard the entire race.You will need to adjust down the time in the zones as your conditioning improves. Your 1-2 zones times appear to be low. I would use zone 2 for warm up / cool down. Zone three for daily easy runs. I seldom use zones. I use HR for goal race training.
Run until the trail runs out.
SCHEDULE 2016--
The pain that hurts the worse is the imagined pain. One of the most difficult arts of racing is learning to ignore the imagined pain and just live with the present pain (which is always bearable.) - Jeff
http://bkclay.blogspot.com/
On the kick (and I've had similar mind bending experiences where a half dozen guys ran away from me at the end of a 1500 - I was late 20s and all of them were 17-20) If you're getting older and better cardio shape, two things are happening: 1. You're older than you were. And training slow. This is the best way to get faster, but your kick will fade, this is fact. Unless track racing is really important to you, the amount of sprint and plyo work to try and keep your kick is not worth it - you certainly won't be able to train as well for longer distances if you're doing that. 2. This is a 2 year PB. You're both finishing with faster people and taking more out of your muscles before the end, so you can't kick as well. This is not a bad thing.
+1
*****
Latent Runner
...despite my best effort, I was getting outkicked at the line (I've never been outkicked in a 5k).
I had a similar humbling experience last summer; I was running the first 10-miler of my life and even though I was thoroughly spent as I turned the corner for the last 200 or so meters, I decided to "get" one more guy (I'd been slowly reeling him in over the last couple of miles). I "sprinted" past him, he looked over and saw that he was getting passed by a fat old man and the look on his face was, "No effing way!" He took off at a pace I had no hope of matching, and per the final times, he (a guy in his early 30s) crossed the line a whopping 17 seconds in front of me. Yikes. That was possibly the first time in my life I'd been out kicked in any race (I've done virtually no racing since 1990). Like Viich wrote, we're getting older (I'll be 57 in a few weeks), and we're pushing relatively speaking harder than the youngsters out there with similar finishing times, so just the fact that we're near enough to even think about competing with them in a final sprint to the finish is a win for us.
Fat old man PRs:
so just the fact that we're near enough to even think about competing with them in a final sprint to the finish is a win for us.
Speak for yourself. For my part, a win for me is when I bury the little whippersnappers!
MTA: On the 198 HR, don't worry about that at all. There is nothing wrong and maybe a lot right with being 42 and having a heart that will beat near 200 bpm. There is so much individual variability in maximum heart rate that you are not really that uncommon at all.
- Joe
We are fragile creatures on collision with our judgment day.
Oh trust me, I enjoy out sprinting the youngsters too, but I do have to be realistic, I'm no where near as fast as I was thirty or forty years ago, and when I'm racing to the finish next to a kid my height and 60 pounds lighter, more often than not, I'm going to lose regardless of how tired the kid is.
The above said, using the 10-Miler from last August as an example, yes, the early thirty-something guy stomped my old butt into the dirt, but I did manage to catch two other (younger) runners before I crossed the line.