Heart rate

[Rob Rohde]

I have a question for y'all.  My marathon training is based solely on heart rate, I basically have 6 different work outs, Recovery runs, General Aerobic, Medium/Long Runs, Marathon Pace, Lactate Threshold, and VO2 max.  I have done some equations to figure out where my heart rate range should be in for each workout based on percentage of my resting HR and Max HR.  To get Max HR I did 8 x 400's on a track and got it up to 192 on which I use in my equations as my max.  However, it seems that almost everyday when I start my workout in the first 2 minutes of my run my Garmin clocks my heartrate at over 200 bpm, it's been as high as 231.  I goes down to a normal range (average 153 bpm) within a minute or two but I was wondering if anyone else has experienced this?  I thought it was a problem with the Garmin but I have worn the strap up to 1/2 an hour before starting to make sure it is reading correctly and it seems to be very accurate.

[Dale]

My Garmin HR monitor does that periodically.  I think it has to do with the connectivity of the HR strap to your chest.   I typically splash some water on mine before putting it on and I suspect the connection isn't always great when I start out.  After generating some sweat, the connection improves and the HR data stabilizes.  Just my guess......

Separately, I dislike using HRs to guide workouts.  Too many external factors affect HR so its not a good indicator of true effort.  But that's for another topic, I suppose....

[Tom]

I'll just second what Dale has said about the Garmin HR sometimes being goofy starting out, and also his thoughts regarding usefulness of using HRs to guide workouts.

What I've found monitoring my HR over the last couple of years is that the various formulas you find for determining HR training zones, at least in my case, can be entirely bogus.  For whatever reason my heart seems to by hyper and although most every HR age-adjusted calculator says my max HR should be 165-175 for my age of 45, I see my HR easily climb into the 180's during tempo runs and almost to 200 at the end of a 5K.

At any rate I think if you want to use HR for training you would want to first do some tests to determine what your true max HR is what your training zone HRs should be.  To start you might want to look at a recent race performance and plug that race pace into one of the calculators out there that will tell you what your expected Marathon/Threshold/LT/etc paces should be.  Then do some training runs at these various paces with the HR monitor and see what your true HR zones are for all these flavors of runs. Then your HR feedback you get during the training runs will be more meaningful I think.

I usually ignore my HR during workouts, but looking at the data after the fact can be very informative and sometimes clue you in that something is wrong (coming down with sickness, overtraining, achieving a breakthrough, etc).

At any rate good luck with your training.

[Chelsi]

I have never worn a HR monitor with my Garmin, but my brother does and has commented on the past on how high it spikes right as he starts. It seems to be a common theme on here.
As far as tracking your max/min HR, I've relied on the expertise of my mother-in-law, who has been a fitness instructor for 30 years and a runner for 5. She doesn't like the charts/equations at all. Her guidance was, listen to your body. If you feel like you could continue your current intensity for 10 minutes, you're right on. If you feel like you could never make it that long, your HR is probably too high. If you feel you could continue at that intensity for longer, you need to step it up a bit.
I suppose that gets a little tricky if you're entire training program is relying on numbers, but I thought I'd add my two cents... for what it's worth.

[Sasha Pachev]

All HRMs give you bogus readings sometimes. That is one reason I will NEVER set a beeper for a target HR even if I am 100% certain I should be running at that HR that day.

One possible cause of initial bogus readings is poor conductivity between the strap and the body, which happens if the skin is dry. Once you work up a sweat, there is moisture. The problme can be solved to some extent by wetting strap before you start the run or using a special gel.

Having said that, I would strongly recommend that you review our list of Top Ten Training Mistakes (see the link at the top of every blog page). Trusting the HRM and the "expert" recommended HR guidelines for determining workout intensity is one of them. It is much better to follow something like this (that's how people on the blog get 30-60 minute marathon PRs), much simpler and easier to remember:

* Until you can run 60-70 miles a week without injuries or excessive fatigue, you run as far as you can and as slow as you need to 5 days a week so that 24 hours later you feel as fresh as you did before you started. On the sixth you run twice that. On the seventh you rest. Increase the distance as you get more fit. When the horses start to neigh, pick up for a minute or two, or even three, or maybe even five and make it fast enough so that they get quiet soon, then keep on running comfortably.

* Once you are past that you will have run a solid marathon PR. To make it even more solid, that is when you have to start to think about what your limiting factors are and how to fix them. Do time trials or race the following distances: 100 meters, 200, 400, 800, mile, 5 K, 10 K, and half-marathon, and post the results on the Training Review Requests.