Heart Rate Question (Read 125 times)

I wouldn't ask for a heart diagnosis here, if you're at all worried I'd talk to a doctor. A cardiologist might order a stress test if they felt there was a risk.

I believe what you're experiencing is related to lack of aerobic fitness, probably because you are running too hard, too often. Google "cardiac drift" and see what you can learn.

I agree, knowing your Max H/R is crucial, because it would tell us at what percentage of your max H/R you're working during your runs. And finding your max H/R is not such an easy thing to do, it takes a lot of preparatory work, before you actually take the max H/R reading.

However, I feel pretty confident in saying that you're probably over-working (stressing) your body during your runs, if you're doing the same intensity every run. The thing is, is that you're probably working in H/R zone 3, which is where most people run, but zone 3 is kind of like a dead zone, because it's just enough to over-stress the body when done time after time, but not enough to where you're feeling dead during or after the run, actually zone 3 feels really good and makes you feel as if you're doing something, but all you're doing is creating too much stress that forces you're body to put too much energy into recovery.

My recommendation would be to slow down to the point of running at 65% of your max H/R, do this for about 4-6 weeks and then see how you feel. This lower level of exertion allows the body to properly build an aerobic base, especially building the mitochondria; furthermore, you can do more running, because you can do back-to-back runs,  because the body is not nearly as stressed as it is when running closer to your max H/R.

This is a very good video on this way of training, some call it aerobic base training or low-h/r training. Whatever you call it, it works, it helped restart my poor running performance I was fighting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MALsI0mJ09I

Here's a good article on 80/20. The thing about this low intensity training, is that when you first start it, you can't believe you're doing any good, because it's so damn easy, you think, "I can't be gaining any fitness from this...".

However, give it a month and you'll see that it did seriously improve you aerobic fitness. Simply because you can run day after day, which is the most important thing to do for improving your performance: CONSISTENCY.

I've also noticed that my H/R is now more consistent and I have less cardiac drift. I also like monitoring my H/R, because it's nice to see that as I run at a set low H/R my speed increases over time, that's when you see real results.

https://www.runnersworld.com/advanced/a20828929/train-at-the-right-intensity-ratio/

Sorry my phone died yesterday so I wasn't able to respond till now.

As far as Max HR.  My normal 7-8 mile run has a huge long hill about mile 5.  If I'm pushing it up that hill my heart rate will touch 190 but never seen it higher than 192.

 

I was a soccer, basketball, sprinter in high school so I never really learned how to run long distance for training.  Just run hard every time!!  95% of my runs are pretty hard and they can vary at 6 miles from 7:45 mile/min to 8:45 mile/min depending on how I feel.

 

My goal is to run a half sometime next year.

 

That was a good article.  I'm not sure I can committee to run 6 days per week.  I'd say with young kids, I can committee to 4 days.

I imagine that you're not putting enough in to get to your max H/R, since you're doing this on a run and most of us don't push ourselves to the absolute max when we still have miles to go.

However, lets just assume you have a max H/R of 200, that means that 130bpm is at 65% of your max. Try doing a few runs at around 130, but beware, you need to leave your ego at home, since you'll be going much slower than you're use to. It sounds like most your runs are at around 85% of your max H/R. I know it doesn't seem hard, but you are stressing your body if you do that each time. I can't emphasize this excerpt enough from the article:

“The effort has to be lower than you think it should be, because you’ve essentially made abnormal normal,” says Greg McMillan, author of YOU (Only Faster). “What is really a moderate effort, you’re calling easy. So when you feel like you’re running easy, run easier.”

BTW, how often do you run per week now? If you ran four times a week at 7-8 miles (low intensity), that would be 28-32 miles per week, do that for four weeks and see how you feel. After my first four weeks, I was itching to run, it put the love of running back in me; I was even running early in the morning and I'm not a morning person.

Maybe try the Maffetone approach; run at a heart rate that is 180 minus your age. Google his article "Want Speed? Slow Down".

That might break me if I have to walk to keep the HR down!!😂

I have to take a lot of short walking breaks to keep my HR where it needs to be for 80/20 training.  I almost can't run slow enough to keep my HR that low, but I try.   I keep telling myself "If I were being paid to keep it at 132, could I do it?"  That helps.

I tried my best on Wednesday and ran 7 miles at 10.00 min/mile and kept the average HR at 152.

 

Yeah, it's tough. When I first started I had to walk a lot to keep my H/R at a certain level, but overtime I decided not to worry so much about cardiac drift and just keep running at a very slow pace, regardless of how much my H/R increased.

 

BTW, I don't even know my max H/R, because it's been years since I've tried to test it, so in that sense I'm not doing a strict low-heart rate training method, rather I'm simply just going very,  very easy...stupid easy. However, I still monitor my H/R during the run and record my average and MAX H/R for each run, because it does show improvement, for example my H/R is much more steady now. I also have a lower resting H/R now; it use to be in the low 50's, but now it's in the mid-upper 40's and I'm 55-y/o.

 

I also still do speed workouts and tempo runs and zone 3/4 runs, but slow running is definitely a very important part of my training program now.