HR info ??? (Read 811 times)

I am currious what folks think this data means... I thought this was an easy run but I felt like it took me a bit to warm up. I wanted to run another 3 miles but I also wanted to get home in time to play with the data before I went to bed... Most of the time on the run I looked down at my watch and it said my pulse was 130is I'm 34, male, 5'11" 150lbs. one interesting thing I noticed was that I did a pretty good job of measuring my work going uphill but on the down hills my HR climbed???

Bad habit of mine... I ask loaded questions... I am really curious what this says about a potential Marathon Pace... also... marathon I am running is really flat also the dip between .4 and .6 miles is a false hill... I went over a bridge???

I am really curious what this says about a potential Marathon Pace.

It doesn't say anything. I have never heard of a correlation between HR and potential. If you're trying to determine how to pace your marathon based on HR, there are ways to do it. However, I have found that, come race day, you may miss out on potential.

Ok what I am thinking is that my fitness level has gone up dramatically over the last month or so... at least since my last half which... was a ball buster (up an down and up and down). I ran a PR but if it was flat it would have been even faster. I was worried I was running a bit too fast lately as my easy run times have been creaping closer to 9:00 miles. I have been feeling comfortable but still wasn't sure. As for HR data being an indicator of potential I agree perhaps no a direct correlation BUT that being said I am sure you could look at HR data and have it say NO WAY... like if my pulse was at 170 yesterday you would say... um DUDE... NO WAY you can do that for 26.2

ok... well tonight is my last double digit run before my marathon... I'll do about 12.5 on a hilly course...

I've used the HRM on a marathon and half and for me, it is most useful during races only as an indicator of when you're pushing too hard. On a marathon, I've seen strategies that say, stay below 80% max heart rate (measured not the 220-age formula) for the first half, then let it climb from there. Specifically, I get to a point where my heart rate will continue to climb even at the same pace on flat ground. When this starts to happen, its the beginning of the end. Running at a pace below that point and figuring out where the "knee in curve" is takes practice and patience and that point gets faster as my fitness improves. On a recent half, my HR climbed up to about 160 and stayed there through about mile 10. When I pushed to a faster pace to finish strong, I over did it and had to back off before the end of mile 12 (past that knee in the curve). At that point, my HR had climbed towards the mid-upper 170's. I know from experience, I can't maintain that for very long (5K at most). On a marathon, I'll try not exceed about 155 for the first half and will absolutely slow down if I notice a progressively higher HR before around mile 15 or 16.

Just be careful about getting too stuck on HR zones and pace predictions. Sometimes the formulas don't compute across the board. For instance this year, my 5k pace HR averages about 180 at close to 6 minute pace. My Half Marathon HR also averaged about 180 at 6:21 pace. In planning or thinking about pace prior to the half I ran last month, if I would have used 5k HR as a guide, I would have gone out much slower thinking I couldn't maintain 5k HR effort for a half marathon. But I did and the only explanation I have is that I have a very high lactate threshold. If I would have forced myself to keep my HR at say 170 for the half I would have been much slower and thus underachieved based on what I actually ended up doing. Make sense?

One thing I noticed is that the downhills are pretty short, probably only a few minutes long, so it could just be HR lagging behind the climb a bit. My HR tends to keep going up for a bit, after topping out on a climb. Another example is during intervals you may notice that it takes a while for the HR to reach target, after starting the interval... then it hangs around high afterwards. I agree it's probably mostly increased leg turnover/moving faster on the downhill, but it could partially be that your HR is still going up after the hard uphill effort.