Yesterday, I pulled my heart rate monitor out of the closet,
for the first time in years, and took it to a speed-work with me. I always
assumed I was in pretty decent aerobic condition. I have run two marathons, a
couple half-marathons, and just finished my first half marathon with acceptable
times.
The walk from my car
to the track brought my heart rate up to a whopping 127 bpm. A very easy 1 mile warm up jog hit 182, and
the hardest of the 10x300 workout peaked at 192 bpm. Eeek!
Today's swim-bike workout was not as scary. A half mile open water swim averaging 152 bpm followed by 10+ miles on the bike averaging 157 bpm.
Today's swim-bike workout was not as scary. A half mile open water swim averaging 152 bpm followed by 10+ miles on the bike averaging 157 bpm.
The coach told me I
need more long slow runs and I need to run my slow runs at 70% heart rate. My internal
response, “Screw that. I just ran 8 miles at 8:45 pace. I don’t need slow
training.”
As usual, I am wrong.
After spending a slow day at work researching heart rate
training, I am willing to admit it might have some merit (imagine that). The
most convincing article I read was Working Your Heart
by Mark Allen. How I currently understand it, 60-70% of your max heart rate is
the intensity at which your body is able to convert fat to fuel and if you
consistently train at that heart rate you will be able to run faster at that
heart rate. As much as I want to believe that I am just too good for long slow
training, if it a 6 time world ironman champion isn’t too good for heart rate
training I can hardly claim to be. Maybe
I will acquire some patience along the way.
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