HR zones for marathon training

menoscemo

I have just bought my garmin 405 with HR monitor, and have had it out on a couple of runs so far a 3miler and a 5 miler tonight. My average HR was 164 on the 3 miler and 159 on the 5 miler. Ok the 3 miler was a bit of a semi sprint, but the 5 mile tonight was an 'easy' run (at least was supposed to be.)

I noticed my HR's are generally faster than most in the other logs on training runs. I did a bit of research and see that most runs should be at around 70% max HR??? I am male and 31 so max HR should be around 190. My resting HR is 49, so by that calculation my aerobic zone (70-80%) is 149-161. So what HR should I be aiming for on training runs? Should I be keeping it to high 140's and low 150's?
I have an 11 miler scheduled for the weekend (my longest ever run) so I do not want to kill myself!!

Cerlan

I wouldn't worry too much about the heart rate zones. My heart rate is usually very high as well according to the garmin. Did 18 miles last week and my heart rate averaged at 83%! Found this website which has two different ways of estimating the heartrate.

http://www.radix.net/~bobg/run/hr.html

The Karvonen estimate seems to work better for me.....

menoscemo

I was using Karvonen in the estimate in the OP. By the simple method, my 3 mile run on monday was at 87% and todays 5 mile at 84% (82% and 78% by Karvonen).
To Clarify: 70-80% by Karvonen method would have me between 149-161.

BTW nice site, I have bookmarked it, expalins race pace very well!!

menoscemo

Bump, anybody else got any advice?

TFBubendorfer

I always get very high HR readings for the first one or two miles if I don't moisten the contacts of the HR strap before putting it on. Those are false readings, not my true HR.

Gringo78

I would do a test to find out what your max heart rate is as opposed to using the formulas. Your resting heart rate is 49 which significantly different from the norm and your max heart rate could also be quite different. Resting heart rate doesn't make too much difference to your heart rates zones but max heart rate does. There are many methods outlined on the web for short tests to determine it but they all have the caveat that there is risk associated with pushing your heart to the max if your're not fit already, i.e if you consider yourself not very fit, search for a sub-max HR test.

I'd say you should try to keep the heart rate more towards 70% than 80% while building up base fitness. It will seem very slow at the start but after a number of weeks your pace will begin to increase.

You don't say what stage you are at in running i.e you've been training for years or are new to this but if you are new to this, keep it more towards 70%

Gringo78

TFBubendorfer wrote: »

I always get very high HR readings for the first one or two miles if I don't moisten the contacts of the HR strap before putting it on. Those are false readings, not my true HR.

I'd recommend also discarding the HR readings from the first 1.5 miles as this is a warmup and will skew the readings, it takes time for your heart to 'get up to speed' so if the avg HR aimed for on a 5mile run is 160, by including the first 1-1.5miles you will end up with >160HR for the last 3.5 miles. Better you do something like this - Mile 1 - avg 140, mile 2 avg 150, mile 3,4,5 avg 160.

menoscemo

Gringo78 wrote: »

I would do a test to find out what your max heart rate is as opposed to using the formulas. Your resting heart rate is 49 which significantly different from the norm and your max heart rate could also be quite different. Resting heart rate doesn't make too much difference to your heart rates zones but max heart rate does. There are many methods outlined on the web for short tests to determine it but they all have the caveat that there is risk associated with pushing your heart to the max if your're not fit already, i.e if you consider yourself not very fit, search for a sub-max HR test.

I'd say you should try to keep the heart rate more towards 70% than 80% while building up base fitness. It will seem very slow at the start but after a number of weeks your pace will begin to increase.

You don't say what stage you are at in running i.e you've been training for years or are new to this but if you are new to this, keep it more towards 70%

Thanks for the reply. I am beginning at running, have been going for about 4 months and would say I am fit enough, but not elite by any means. Endurance Running has always been a challenge to me as well, at school I would have been more a sprinter/long jumper.
I definately need to improve my fitness. I intend doing a max heart rate test, but I don't imagine it is any different than the norm (i.e. around 190). My resting heart rate was 49 yesterday (I took it in bed in the morning and this is the lowest it got to) this morning it went no lower than 54.

I think I will try to keep my HR lower on long runs. I did a 9 miler last week without HR monitor (I am building up my mileage at the moment) and Imagine my avg HR was around 160 based on the readings I have got this week. That would be around 80%. I think I will keep it around 150 or 70% from now on, but somehow I imagine I will be going too slow at this HR. I will also feel i am not pushing myself at all (This is proabably inexperience- as I said I am new to all this). So this new thinking be correct?

BTW Like TF Bufenburger I also tend to get high readings at the start but they drop withing a minute, however I should proabably moisten the contacts more.