Question for runners about long runs

yirara wrote: »

bcalvanese wrote: »

yirara wrote: »

mom2kateRH wrote: »

I'm trying to increase my mileage, and also trying to be smarter about my training. Today, I used a heart rate monitor, and paid attention to that, rather than pace. Since this was my long run for the week, I targeted a HR zone of 3 (aeroobic training, about 60% mhr, can still talk).

I ignored my pace, but felt slow. That being said, last week, I struggled to complete three miles. Today, I easily did 3.5, and could have definitely gone longer, but 1) had to pee 2) was getting super hot out

My pace, when I reviewed my records, was around 13 minute mile, when I've typically been running around 11-12.

Should I be disappointed in the pace, or is this appropriate for my weekly long runs where I'm trying to increase distance? I also do interval training once/week, and a run of a comfortable distance (right now around 1.5-2 miles) where I push the pace slightly.

Anyway, not yet training for anything specific. Hoping to get where I can think about a half marathon

Don't use standard HR settings on such a watch! Only about 40% of people fall into the 220-age equation. That means, for 60 people out of 100 this equation does not work as their maximum heartrate is either higher or lower.

Now, determining your maxHR is very difficult if you're not fit enough yet. And it's still very difficult for experienced runners. What I would do is this:

slow run: you can still talk in full, coherent sentences or sing along to music (provided you have a bit of fitness already)
intermediate run: you can still talk
fast: talking? You're trying to breathe and keep on going!

with this in mind you can calibrate the watch to your specific heartrate zone. You will also notice that if you repeat your run a while later at the same pace your heartrate will likely be lower. Such a watch is great for observing trends!

Although some people have a different max heart rate than the 220 - age formula, the vast majority of the population fall within a few beats per minute of the formula. And it is certainly a good starting place for the majority of people.

This is an interesting bit of research: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3935487/

I've not done any research, but noticed during HRmax attemps with HR of each participant projected onto the wall during spinning lessons some fairly similar distributions. Of course the group was much smaller. Of course this research shows that a substantial amount of people fall within +/- 10bpm of various equations commonly used. but a substantial amount of people are within the +/-10 to 20bpm group, which already is close to a dealbreaker for Maffetone.