I’m going to talk about me (Nathan) for a minute. To monitor my progress as I get back into running, I started using a GPS and heart rate monitor to monitor my speed and heart rate. I’ve notice my heart rate gets going at about 180-185 BPM at a 9:30 pace. At that pace, I can hold a conversation, I can speed up if needed, and I seem to be able to sustain that pace for a few miles.
At 31 years of age, I’m pretty sure my max heart rate is supposed to be somewhere around 189 BPM (220 minus my age) and I shouldn’t be able to maintain anything above 90% of that which puts me at about 180 BPM. But, 180-185 BPM seems to be where I find myself running.
Until today.
Today I went out and my feet were pounding the pavement a little faster and my heart was pounding in my chest a little slower. On a 3.75 mile run, my pace averaged 9:07 with a heart rate of 172 BPM. I dropped 10 to 20 seconds off my pace and 5 to 10 BPM off my heart rate. Nice. Love seeing progress.
Maybe one day I’ll be as fast as Patrik and Dave. I have all winter to catch up. For now, I’ll just be a little proud of a little improvement.
Good stuff Nathan!!! Back in April I was in a similar situation. It takes some convincing, but you must slow down to go faster. Hard to swallow when your competitive like us. Anyhow, I bit the bullet and ran as slow as needed to keep HR in 130′s…something like a 10 min pace I think. Today, I ran 7 miles at a pace of 8:35 with an avg HR of 134. BTW, my max HR is like 186 (per the formula) and I sustained 175 for a 10k…so not so sure about the one size fits all linear HR formula.
Keep up the good work. So jealous you can run in somewhat decent conditions all winter! I ran in snow Sunday:)