Need help analyzing heart rate monitor info...

ctychick

Hi everyone! I just started using the Polar FT4F Heart Rate Monitor and need some help understanding the information its providing. I've always floated in and out of exercise phases and never thought much about the dynamics behind what I was doing. Now that I'm taking a closer look, I realize how little I know about what works and what doesn't. Please excuse my naivete!

I do a 2.2 mile power walk semi-regularly on a street with varied inclines - many of which are very long and steep. I consider it a great interval workout and see results when I do it consistently over a few months at a time. I'm just now starting up again after having gone quite some time without working out at all. Now that I have a heart rate monitor, I'm wondering what the read-out is saying about the quality of my walk. Yesterday's session yielded the following information...

The "in zone" range determined by the watch was 131-151. I'm female, 42, 5'6" and 165 lbs.

Distance - 2.2 mi
Duration - 38:53
Calories - 356
Avg Hrt Rt - 144
Max Hrt Rt - 180
Time in Zone - 24:31

My thoughts as I was walking and checking the watch: I was surprised that when power walking up steep hills I would have such a difficult time keeping myself in my zone. I would hang around 165 give or take most of the time. I was not uncomfortably stressed, just working hard. I thought I could get myself back into the zone by steadying my pace a bit, but that didn't work. And slowing down felt like I wasn't really doing much more than leisurely walking up a tough hill.

Questions:

If the goal is to stay within my zone, then does being "stuck" ABOVE the zone high mean that my fitness level needs to catch up to the challenge of this particular workout? Before seeing the actual numbers, I always thought that the extra exertion on hills meant that I was in my zone and being effective.

When I find myself above my zone, should I change my pace, speed, etc., to bring myself back down into my zone? How would I do that on a walk like the one I'm describing? Or, should I continue on as usual over a period of time and expect that eventually I'll be able to do the same workout at the same intensity while staying in my zone? And then if/when I reach that point, does that then mean that I need to up the challenge of my workout? Wouldn't that then put me back where I started - working out above my zone?

Am I totally missing the picture here?

Any insight, guidance, or suggestions would be appreciated! Thanks!