Forums >General Running>Running by Heartrate or Perceived Exertion ?
I use heartrate as a guide only and generally run by how i am feeling. If i am feeling good, i push myself that much more even if it means my heartrate is higher.
Why is it sideways?
If you are training for something specific, then heart rates go with the type of training runs you are executing: tempo, steady-state, LSD, intervals, fartleks, etc. Targeted training will get you ready for that PR at your next race.
Two comet topics by same poster in one day. Hmm.
A quinella!
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I'm running somewhere tomorrow. It's going to be beautiful. I can't wait.
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I've got a fever...
On your deathbed, you won't wish that you'd spent more time at the office. But you will wish that you'd spent more time running. Because if you had, you wouldn't be on your deathbed.
Heart rate is too easily affected by external factors such as temperture/humidity, the amount of sleep you got, etc., to be completely reliable. I think the only thing it's really good for is to keep you from running too fast on easy days.
I'm not sure if I 100% agree but that's precisely why people argue FOR training by HR - it takes into account the external factors and insures you run at that particular day's optimum level.
So, if your heart rate is going to be higher than normal on "bad" days, then perhaps we should use our heart rate to make sure we're not training too hard. If your heart rate is lower than normal on good days, then perhaps we should use the "ideal" pace guidelines to make sure we dont' run too fast on the easy days. That is, use both heartrate, pace, and the purpose of the workout to control your pace.
I know my ideal paces were from races where I was rested. If I'm not rested during a training run (which I rarely am), i can easily be worried about running too slow on the easy days, and beat myself up because I'm not running fast enough on the fast days.
+1
I use heart rate as more of a speed limit and set my pace by how I feel that day, and how far I have to go. But if I have a day when I feel really good, I'll throw it all out the window and just have fun with it, provided I have nothing big coming up.
5K 20:20 9/17/11 13.1 1:36:58 6/12/11 26.2 3:34:19 9/23/2012
What is that day's optimum level? How do you determine that?
I remember a time I was training indoors on a treadmill. The room was warm, there was no air-flow, and my HR was artificially high as a result, even though I was training at an easy pace, barely breathing, and expending little energy. If I had followed my HR monitor in lockstep, I would've had to have slowed down almost to a walk.
HR is a good tool to keep you from going too fast, but it's also a good way to wreck a nice run if you obsess about it.
BTW, I just kind of play around with the HR in my training. Don't really go by the thing for training paces and efforts and especially not races, though I do wear it for races. I do like to experiment with it to see if and when my observations line up with those of the real HR guys like Maffetone.
If that day's training calls for 90% of your max HR then whatever that is, on that particular day, is the 'optimum' level - so the theory goes. By that standard you should have slowed down to a walk on that treadmill day.
I'm similar. I take the data, but don't really look at it much in-run, other than to keep myself from going too fast on easy days which is one of my (many) faults.
It might has "felt" easy to you, but your HR showed otherwise... Yes, you shouldn't obsess, but it is a valuable tool to gauge correct pace for workouts...
What is that day's optimum level? How do you determine that? I remember a time I was training indoors on a treadmill. The room was warm, there was no air-flow, and my HR was artificially high as a result, even though I was training at an easy pace, barely breathing, and expending little energy. If I had followed my HR monitor in lockstep, I would've had to have slowed down almost to a walk. HR is a good tool to keep you from going too fast, but it's also a good way to wreck a nice run if you obsess about it.
It might has "felt" easy to you, but your HR showed otherwise...
No, my HR showed that my heart was pumping harder to promote more blood flow in hopes of reducing my core temperature because of the external factors I mentioned. This had little to do with my pace, which I did not find challenging. I listened to my body and used what I knew about my perceived exertion to recognize that my HR during that run was fluke due to the circumstances.
Don't forget, the inverse can also happen. At the beginning of a race, you may show a higher heart rate than usual simply because of adrenaline and excitement. Should you slow down? That depends; maybe you are going out too fast, but maybe it's just the race-day rush. That's why it helps to have a handle on your perceived exertion.
Don't get me wrong; I have a HRM, I use it most runs, I like it for aiming under 80%max on easy days. But it's not an exact, repeatable thing and treating it as such promotes needless worry in a lot of runners.