"Please note that if you're below about 25 years old or above 55 or so, you really need to be ready to make adjustments to formulas." Jesse ... I'm 65 years old. What "adjustments" need to be made to the "180-age" formula"

There's no set answer to that question, but generally you would be adding at least 5 beats. slowgino would be your best mentor for what to do. You may want to look at a few of his posts in some of these top "sticky" threads.

hi

have lurked on and off for a while, but some poor progress has prompted me to return. So here's the thing: I'm 45, about 142lbs, and 5'3 (female) and have ben running (this time!) consistently for almost a year. I could do with losing about 8lbs (although I am fairly muscular), and usually run about 30 miles a week.

 

I am working on a rough HR Max of about 178 (+ 5 as I have been running for a while), but all in all I'm now running at about 132 ave (in 2 weeks this has become much easier to do with no effect on pace). My pace is about a 12m/m. I am planning on doing this for about 3 months - I no longer walk/run and my running is genuinely easy.

 

Two questions:

 

1. how strict do I have to be? e.g. 2-3 beats over is OK, or not? given that I am working off estimates anyway, I can't see that this matters that much

2. as I improve I am finding that it takes me longer to get up to target HR and that I don't have to slow down to maintain it: should I (a) lower target heart rate or (b) increase pace to keep same HR?

 

I've been doing the former the last couple of weeks as I think my initial HR was a bit too high.

 

Final question - I figure that you need a good bit of mileage to reap the benefits, but also some rest. I usually run 6 days a week. Is this OK for LHR training?

 

Thanks very much