I went on my first Park Run in September 2018 with the goal of running the whole way around. I did, but it took me 39 minutes. I've been averaging about one Park Run every 3 weeks since then and my time is now around 29 minutes. I've been doing the odd another run, but nothing that would constitute a fixed training plan. I was already reasonably fit as I do HIIT and resistance training and walk and cycle everywhere, which obviously helped.
However, I'm concerned that I may have unknowingly been pushing things much too hard. I got a smartwatch for Christmas and was excited to use it for my first Park Run of the year. I looked at the analysis on Strava after I got home and was horrified that my heart rate had AVERAGED at pretty much my max heart rate of 180 and had even peaked at 190. I'm a 39, nearly 40-year-old woman.
Without the heart rate monitor I would never have known. I didn't feel out of breath. It was challenging and I pushed myself, but it felt very manageable. I even ran another 2.5km home from the park.
Should I drop my pace and make sure that I keep my heart rate at a much slower rate? I went for a trial run the other day and kept my heart rate around 155, but I was barely going above walking pace. I think I was going at about 9mins per km.
Obviously, I don't want to endanger myself by pushing myself too hard, but equally I don't want to be overly cautious. Am I just a lot less fit than I thought I was? I'm not experienced enough with running to know the best course of action.
Many thanks for your help!
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You may want to try something like the field test described as
https://www.polar.com/blog/calculate-maximum-heart-rate-running/
because 220 - your age is just a v rough average and none of us is actually average.
That being the case there is something to be said for doing Heart Rate Zone training. I did this after picking up too many injuries and after getting over the early frustrations (old ladies on zimmer frames going past me as I tried to keep my HR in the zone) you soon pick up the pace and, more importantly, don't pick up the injuries. If you stick with it you'll see the benefits.
I find the first 6 or 7 mins of a run puts my heart rate right the way up on my garmin vivoactive 3.
Mine is probably because I am trying to get as much air in my lungs as possible in that time....so I have found heavy long breathing helps along with a little warm up.
Another vote for ignoring wrist-rate HRM readings. My cadence is usually about 190-200, and my Fenix 3HR has a tendency to somehow switch over mid-run to recording this as heart rate. Very visible on the graph on Garmin Connect afterwards - HR shows a big and instantaneous step up and matches cadence exactly for rest of the run. This happens often enough that I now wear a chest strap on every run, simply because the wrist strap reading is so iffy. It may be that your 180-190 was correct, everyone is different. But I imagine that at that heart rate you would know about it, and would probably be out of breath at least.
Try a chest HRM (can you borrow one from somewhere, or buy one cheaply?) and see how you get on, I would guess that you'll see markedly different results. And if not, at least you know the reading is accurate.
There is a massive spread on these things, away from the 'average'.
There's also loads of different formulas for how to calculate zones based on heart rates.
The supplied zones on garmin/polar/strava etc were miles out for me so I punched in my max heart rate and resting heart rate on this handy page https://www.fitdigits.com/personalized-heart-rate-zones.html
and I have settled on Karvonen modified for me, as the one that fits closest to my perosnal running experience.
Then its just a question of customising your zones on your device to reflect the change and you're set