Running question

I find I can't run for very long when my heart rate is at 185! My comfy running heart rate is around 175 (I love HRMs!!).

Personally, just do what is right for you and set your own goals. Do you want to gain speed, distance or just burn some calories for extra food? I've varied all three of those goals through the years I've been running and it's what keeps me motivated. Also use a good running app that will clearly show your progress and improvement. I use Runkeeper but there's many other good ones out there.

Once you've done your basic warm-up and stretch, high-intensity intervals are your fastest way to improve your fitness, although I'd alternate intervals with upper body cross-training -- you really need recovery time doing interval training, and I don't consider a slow distance day to be enough recovery...depends on the runner, 'tho.

A good HIIT workout would be something like a one-minute flat-out push at your max, followed by a slow jog or walk for four or five minutes. Repeat as your level of fitness allows. If one minute is too long of a push for your level of fitness, drop it back -- the key is the flat-out followed by the slow.

I ran a mile today for the first time since September and my HR was 192 at the highest and I too questioned whether I needed to stop or not because frankly it freaked me out! I was at like .9 miles and wanted to hit that mile mark so I kept going until 1 mile. I slowed down and then as my heart rate was dropping I felt a little woozy. I don't think I'll push that hard again and keep it around 170-175.

This.

I ran for about 10 minutes alternating between 5.5mph and 6.5. HR got up to 188 and I had to tone it down a bit.

OP, listen to your body. Even if you run at a comfortable pace, you can increase your distance the longer you do it.

It's not really about how high your heart rate gets, it's about how quickly it returns to normal after you stop exercising. If you have no other symptoms - I would let "perceived effort" guide you on when to slow down.

cheers

now I wear a hrm and my heart rate is sometimes 185 and I feel this is to high and I should possibly stop even if I am not too short of breath and I start running once it's back at 150 - but my partner say I should aim to run for as long as possible and the try to beat that time

Heart rate training is one of the ways to improve performance, essentially identify your training range and then try to keep your HR within that range by increasing or reducing your pace. For some sessions that'll be a range that you can sustain for a while, for other sessions you'll pick a range that's sustainable for less time. It has a different effect. For interval training, as alluded to above, HR is less useful as it takes time for the changes in HR to settle, over time the HR tends to increase ina single session, so interval training is just a lot less easy to determine.

What you're describing is a perfectly reasonable way to improve your performance. You can work on rate of perceived exertion (RPE), and record times or distances to assess your improvement, or you can work on time intervals as in C25K or any of the similar programmes, or you can work on distances.

There are two risks with RPE, the first is that it depends on your own motivation, you can never be sure that you're chossing to ease back at a comparable point to where you eased back on your previous run. You're not really comparing like with like so while you'll make improvements you may not make them as quickly as you could.

The second risk is overtraining, you push yourself too far or too fast and end up with a training injury. Using a periodised programme won't prevent that, but it will reduce the risk.

The main thing is that you're out there and working, as long as you stick with it you'll improve your performance.

A good HIIT workout would be something like a one-minute flat-out push at your max, followed by a slow jog or walk for four or five minutes.

So fairly relaxed then

She's new. I'm assuming it'll take a while for her heart rate to come down. Minute on / minute off is probably way too strenuous. Wondering if maybe a 15 second push would be enough. A full minute is a lot when you're first starting out, and I'd hate to see someone injure themselves just starting out.

For someone just getting into running I'd agree that intervals are the way to build up capacity, whilst I've described other ways to get there I'd personally commend time based intervals as the easiest way. Notwithstanding that interval training really only starts to add much benefit when there is an existing aerobic base.

I'd generally advocate getting to the stage that one can reasonably run 30 minutes continuous steady state before starting to add speedwork. Prior to that speedwork is a recipe for injury and delivers minimal effect anyway. By the time someone can run for 30 minutes they'll have a better feel for the discipline, their form will be improving and the risk of injury is much reduced.

Then there is potential for a ten minute warm up, twenty minute interval, ten minute cool down to be a sensible session.

Notwithstanding that I have seen several people on here claim that 1 minute sprint, four minutes walk, repeat five times is a credible CV session for an experienced trainer. Admittedly the same ones that think that all CV work eats muscle.