seek and ye shall receive!
Venturing into the land of Lydiard, I issued a call for help. That call was answered in spades by Andrew over at Downeast Running.
Inspired with a ton of things in Andrew’s comments, I ventured out today wearing “Gretchen” (my Polar 625x) with one goal - to keep my heart rate under 80% (if I understood Andrew correctly, this is optimum marathon pace heart rate).
Note: My max heart rate, which I tested about 4 years ago with some totally balls-out running is 200 beats per minute — eighty percent of that is 160.
I was in for a surprise. Keeping under 160 was extremely difficult. I felt like I was practically crawling.
Stats:
Distance: 6.68 miles
Time: 64 minutes
Pace: 9:35 minutes/mile or 5:57 minutes per kilometer
What I Learned: I have a lot of work to do … YAY!
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Edit: Terrific news. If you look in the comments, you’ll see clarification from Andrew for the 80% heart rate I was after. The result is that the heart rate I should be after is actually 170 — a heart rate that’s achieved with a pace I feel very comfortable with for long runs.
Comment by Andrew
Tuesday October 17, 2006 @
I should have been more clear, sorry. % of max HR is actually % of max HR “reserve” calculated like this:
Max HR - Resting Rate. Multiply result by % then add back to resting rate.
So if you’re max HR is 200 and your resting is 60, you have 140 reserve. Multiply by 80% = 112. Add back resting rate of 60 and the 80% maxHR = 172.
I bet this works better for you pace-wise.