Should I run slower, to run faster? (Read 1612 times)

When I started running again, I bought a Polar heart rate monitor.  The guy who sold it to me was very specific.  He said do not go over 135 ... max 140 for the first 6 months that equals to about 70%-75% (or aerobic).  I was in my late 50's. 

The Polar sets your lower and upper limits using the user data of age, gender and weight.  These limits an be over-ridden at any time as you become more familiar with your abilities. 

Let me tell you, I though it was impossible to keep my heart rate down.  But after a week or two it got easier.  I am now in my 60's, and although I am still not so fast ... I run very challenging hills, but I am competitive in my age group on a flat course.  I have never been injured (knock on wood), lost 30 pounds, dropped my blood pressure medicine, and hopefully I'll be dropping the statin as well. 

Go slow, take your IPod with slower music.  Enjoy life, fresh air and your thoughts.  To heck with other runners passing you right now ... run your own race. 

Don't overthink the HR. It may be interesting data after the fact, but it's not worth obsessing about.  Just run as much as you can.  Mostly at a pace you could have a conversation at if you running with someone. 

Probably the best place to start making changes.  Keep most of your runs easy.  If you can't carry on full-sentence conversations, you're probably pushing too hard.  If that means slowing down, so be it.  And not that pushing a little is bad, just don't do it every run.  Maybe twice a week to start, and one of those will be your long run (you're pushing it just by the fact that it's a long run compared to the rest of your runs).  So if you want to run faster, best bet is to do it somewhere in the middle of the week - that gives your body time to repair itself before you push again on the weekend.  And adding in those two extra runs will help, too.   Instead of focusing on the HR, I prefer to focus on the effort (easy, pushing some, racing a 5K, etc), and then see where my HR sits at each of those efforts.  I use it more like "well, that felt easy, and yup, HR in the 150's, that confirms it", or "hmm, HR is only in the 130s and this feels easy, wonder if I can pick up the pace a little and still keep it feeling easy?"

I was where you are a little more than a year ago, and am finally getting to the point where I can hold something close to 9 min/mile for a 1/2 marathon.  It takes time, but put in the miles consistently and you'll see your paces drop.