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Heart Rate training pace is crushingly slow!
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Hello,
After having a fair few injury niggles during a marathon campaign a couple of years ago, I thought I'd get into HR training to get back into running (as I've signed up for London 2013).
The problem I have is that after testing my resting HR (straight after waking while still lying down) and Max HR (one of the horrible tests that are suggested on here!), my 'Slow' pace is ridiculous. I found myself pretty much running on the spot and I was still over it! I had to cross the road so I didn't have the embarrassment of someone walking their dog overtake me!
I've bought the Idiot's Guide book which I'm waiting to be delivered, but in the meantime if anyone's got any thoughts about what to do I'd love to hear them.
Cheers
Simon
After having a fair few injury niggles during a marathon campaign a couple of years ago, I thought I'd get into HR training to get back into running (as I've signed up for London 2013).
The problem I have is that after testing my resting HR (straight after waking while still lying down) and Max HR (one of the horrible tests that are suggested on here!), my 'Slow' pace is ridiculous. I found myself pretty much running on the spot and I was still over it! I had to cross the road so I didn't have the embarrassment of someone walking their dog overtake me!
I've bought the Idiot's Guide book which I'm waiting to be delivered, but in the meantime if anyone's got any thoughts about what to do I'd love to hear them.
Cheers
Simon
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HR during the day can vary quite a bit, so don't worry about it ... I know mine goes up after eating, presumably due to all the work my digestion system is doing?
Hadd advises the following for someone who finds sub 70%maxHR running just too slow ... calculate your 5k race pace per mile and add 3 mins ... go for a run at this pace and check your HR and use this pace as your "easy run pace". When you find that the pace at this low easy HR improves by 20secs/mile, drop down your easy HR by 5bpm and continue. Hopefully this will eventually start to match your 70% maxHR value.Alternatively, your maxHR test gave you something that was too low ... and you'll have to do it again!What %age are you using for your slow.
Are you using %age working heart rate (WHR) or %age of Max heart rate?
At the risk of teaching you to suck eggs. To calculate your WHR zones HR = (A/100 x (Max-Min)) + Min, where A is the %age you're are aiming at.
60-70% Slow recovery
70-80% Aerobic
80-90% Anaerobic.
TimR - always feel free to teach me to suck eggs! From reading the various articles I went with WHR, so 192-64=128. That gave me a 60-70% of <154 which I really struggled to keep within, even at a crawl.
It always sucks when you realise you're much more unfit than you thought you were!! Having done a 1.53 HM a couple of years ago on not much training, I'm hoping to be able to break the 4hr mark for next year's marathon. Thank God I've got a lot of time, as at the moment my pace at 75% WHR is around 11min/mile!! Ha ha!
Your long slow aerobic run is 70-80% which would be 166.
80% wHR for a LSR is way too hard. That would be 152 bpm for me ... I would actually run it at 125-130 bpm.
Parker has aerobic easy running as being under 70% wHR ... while Hadd has it as it as under 70% maxHR (which is something like 60% wHR).
Yes, the article at http://www.angio.net/personal/run/hadd.pdf is the infamous "Hadd document" compiled from his posts on Lets Run ... here is a link to a useful explanation of the approach http://can.milesplit.com/discussion/topics/90162/1
I'm hoping it's all relative, as everyone seems to be talking about people doing seriously fast paces even during the easy runs (which of course means they'll be running a lot more miles than I would be). All I need to get to is just under 9.09 per mile and I'll be golden, so hopefully if I'm doing 4 runs per week to get things started that will still stand me in good stead.
Having read all sorts of contrasting information about HR training over the last few days, I think I might just start out by doing my best to keep to under 65% of WHR (147bpm for me, which may unbelievably have to include walking to start off with!) for a month, and then see where I'm at. If at the end of that period I'm still struggling to go at any pace at all then maybe it's not for me. If however I'm able to run at what I'd at least consider a jog then fingers crossed I can push on with it from there.
At least I won't have to worry about sweating - I could do this in my suit!!
Anyway, even at an astonishingly slow average pace of 13:38m/m (I would normally be looking at 9m/m) my average HR was 161, which is 76% of WHR!
Could it just be that I'm really aerobically unfit, and therefore the gains will be fairly dramatic once I've got a few weeks under my belt?
It appears that for all these years I've somehow managed to run some quite long distances anaerobically!
Even though it's so difficult to go so slow (and takes an enormous amount of time to even do a short run), I think I'll try and bear with it as much as possible to see if I can actually get my HR down to the mythical 144.
I just have to learn to deal with the embarrassment of 'running' past people looking like I'm doing some sort of mime sketch!!
If anyone else has had the same problem but persevered I'd love to hear from you!!!
Stress, sleeping and dehydration are other things to look at.
SR ... run at the "5k race pace + 3 mins" as outlined above. 13-14m/m is too slow.
Also, as mentioned, you could have just underestimated your maxHR.
Hey Simon
Thought I'd chip in my two-penneth worth. If you get half a chance see if you can get a copy of a book called Slow Burn - I started training using the formulas given (as a novice-intermediate runner) about 18 months ago. The zones they work on are Mostly Aerobic Pace (MAP), Most Efficient Pace and Speedy Anaerobic Pace. At first I could hardly run in the MAP zone but now after perservering I comfortably do 9.30 mi/miles at that HR.
I'm also fascinated by the Hadd approach and one day I will commit myself to the 50mpw but at the moment I get by nicely on 35-40 mpw. It's amazing how quickly your body adapts at lower heart rates - if you let it...
With regard to the MHR, I agree I may be a few beats out, but even if I calculated my WHR based on 220bpm MHR, then my slow pace would still be at 158 which I was above. I'm either terribly unfit or I'm a total freak of nature - or maybe both!
Sleepy Bear (good name btw), thanks for your two-penneth worth, I'll see if I can track down 'Slow Burn', it sounds like it would be very useful. I've also got the Complete Idiot's guide to Heart Rate Training on order, so I'm hoping that my shed some light on things too.
Many thanks
This might help - just thought I'd better clarify which book I meant - there seem to be others with similar titles:
Linky
Good luck - let us know how you're getting on...
Simon I am a similar freak of nature... The only way I could get my heart down to the 150 ish was to creep along and if I came to a hill of any description I had to actually walk. I have just accepted that my heart beats quite high and after getting scared by the HRM decided to ditch it and go by perceived effort.
Good luck!
Flo Po - thank God I'm not the only one! Maybe we should form a club?!
It was when I got overtaken by the pensioners with the zimmer I thought this can't be right!
Seriously I was embarrassed to be running slower than walkers!
Sorry guys, but you're not freaks of nature, you're just not very aerobically fit at the moment. I was just as sceptical as you when I started Hadd training four months ago and couldn't believe how slowly I'd have to run compared to my usual training or race paces. I too thought that maybe I was a freak of nature and I should abandon it, as does pretty much everyone when they first start low HR training I think! However, I stuck at it and I'm glad I did because it works. I can now run a whole minute per mile quicker at my easy heart rate. Bear in mind, that it took me a month to see any improvement whatsoever, so you do need to be patient!
I'd definitely recommend starting using Hadd's 5k pace + 3 mins to start with though (+ yes, that is 3 minutes per mile - 3 minutes over the whole 5k would be way too fast for an easy pace!) or you'll just get sick of the training. Gradually you should see the heart rate coming down for that pace, until hopefully eventually you'll be able to run it at your easy HR.
Also, don't think that the easy pace would be your race pace on the day. Depending on the distance, you should be able to race at much faster than that pace. To give you an example, for the first three months I ran pretty much everything at 9-9:45mm and yet I completed a half marathon a few weeks ago at an average of 6:50mm! (which got me a PB
). I've been averaging about 45 miles a week by the way, so you don't necessarily need to run 50 every week to see the benefits of Hadd training.
I know just how you feel about slow runs at 70% hr but stick with it and it WILL get better
I started HADD training at the begining of the year and 115bpm was as low as I could get without walking. I am now running at 107bpm avg for my LSR runs at 11min a mile.
Stick with it guys!
In June last year I was walking up hills to keep below my own target of 133 but I stuck with it. Now I run the same hills well below 140bpm and my average HB is 6-7bpm lower than last year.
I am way faster across the ground and have PB's in all distances from 5k (20:15) to HM 1:34:19.
All of this while in the middle of (debut) marathon training for VLM which I successfully completed in 3:32:13 and an average HB of 153. I have no doubt that learning to run at a low HB while in early training helped me to run faster and set me up to be much more efficient in burning fuel - fat first rather than glycogen.
When I needed to up the pace at mile 19 in the mara, I was able to push through the last 7 miles in 51 mins and mile 25 was run in 6:53 - but it all started with those long slow runs!
BTW - I am 62 going on 63 yrs old, so you really should be able to do it......just believe and stick with it.
Finally, I am part of a running facebook group and two ladies followed my lead and have both progressed by 2 min/mile pace and PB's, so I am not a universe of one!
My next run is tomorrow (having not run in ages I'm just going to do 4 easy runs of around 3 miles per week for the first few weeks) so I'm going to try the 5k pace plus 3 and see what heart rate that has me at!
And Daren, I sadly agree with you that it's no doubt a sign of just how horribly unfit I am! The good news is that will hopefully all soon change
Thanks again everyone for all your comments - I really do appreciate them all.
I'm not sure it's all down to unfit-ness. Not for everybody. On LSRs my HR usually sits steady at just above 80% of my tested max. My resting pulse is below 50. I run marathons. I'd say I'm pretty fit.
Blimey r-w-d, what happens to your heart rate at race pace?
r-w-d, I'm sure you are very fit, but you're also probably running your LSRs faster than you need to then. 80% max is a pace that I could fairly comfortably handle for an LSR too, and theoretical marathon pace according to Hadd is more like 85% or even slightly higher, but it's not the optimum HR for fat burning/building endurance and would also leave me more tired after the session than I need to be to get the benefit of it.
Mike, excellent times,looks like you got more in the tank especially the marathon.
Well I did what I would consider a slow 3 miler today without looking at the HRM, and even though I kept to an average pace of 10:39 min/mi, when I got back and checked, my avge HR was 171 (which is 84%WHR / 89%MHR). I'm almost certain that in my case I must just be really aerobically unfit.
I think what's thrown me with this is that I do loads of calisthenics, so I look fit, and therefore thought I would be!
Given all the very helpful comments on here, I'm just going to keep doing what I would consider to be slow runs (withouth looking at HR for now), until I build up a base level of fitness, and then hopefully get back on track with the correct heart rate zones for building a really good aerobic base. By then I'll probably be needing to start training for the marathon so it should fit in nicely!
Hi Simon sorry to be stealing your topic but it has sparked an interest in me again.
I find it hard to believe I am unfit. I run over 100 miles a month have just run VLM where I peaked in March at 160 miles. So although my heart beats high am I still unfit?
I am also about to enter a busy time at my club with lots of events and league races.
Where do you think I should start? I can't go out and do all my runs slow!
Would it be best to do my longer one slow. I am not fast by the way...but 3 mins over my 5k would be 11.50 and that seems impossible.
As I am on nights this weekend and haven't much time I may go out and try to do a run at that speed and see what the HRM tells me.