Is My Heart Rate Too High?

Audio Transcript

Coach Hayley: Hey everyone. I am your community manager here at Runners Connect. I will be here with your daily podcast this week.

I hope you are having a great day and thanks for joining me for today’s episode. If you have a burning question that you would like one of our expert coaches to answer on the show, head over and submit it at runnersconnect.net/daily.

We’d love to help you improve so don’t hesitate to ask us what you need to know. Today we have a great question from Caitlyn.

Caitlyn: I’m getting discouraged and it appears my heart rate is always way too fast to be doing anything aerobically.

I know that most of your [miles 00:00:46] should be easy say 65 to 75%, but my heart rate is usually about 180 and tempo run intervals can be 202.

I’m 20 years old and according to any formula I do is too hard.

I realize that formulas don’t work out the best, but my resting heart rate is getting lower and lower, low 60’s as I get fitter and fitter which is normal, but I just can’t explain the fast heart rate unless I’m overtraining.

The only problem with this theory is that I run three to four times a week, two easy days, two hard days like tempo intervals.

I’m slow; even 12-minute miles right now puts me in that zone.

I even feel like my runs are always hard. My face is too much red, I sweat buckets, and I usually huff and buff after one mile. What gives? Thanks in advance.

Hayley: Hey Caitlyn. I’d say try not to get too discouraged. It sounds to me like you are doing very well.

If your resting post-race is going down, you are getting fitter and I don’t think you’re overtraining. That would normally cause the resting heart rate to increase.

Let’s start by talking about that heart rate. Honestly, I’d suggest taking a break from running to heart rate, it sounds like it’s stressing you out and I find it isn’t always the best indicator and it isn’t right for everyone.

You’re right that the formula doesn’t work for us all.

You can calculate your true maximum heart rate with a treadmill test and lose so much individual variation for example at the age of 20, I had a maximum heart rate of 188, so I’m the other extreme.

The form of this really didn’t work for me.

It sounds like your max heart rate is above what the form suggests of 200. Well if you’re going to 202 in tempo runs it is, but it sounds like it’s somewhere above that, so the formula might not work for you.

The fact that your easy runs are 180, you see a good variation in effort level between that easy run and tempo run which is a good thing it’s just that you could be doing it right, but like I say heart rate can be affected by so many factors.

Stress, sleep, dehydration, caffeine, and inaccuracies with your monitor can all cause readings that don’t seem right.

Use your effort level as a guide I find that to be a much better indicator anyway.

I use filters to determine my paces for workouts and it’s useful because it considers how you’re doing on a given day as well mentally and physically.

You are also right that it’s important to include some training in the easy zone. The easy one is key for aerobic development in sports the ability to do harder workouts.

The easy zone is where the running feels comfortable and your breathing is easy and from the description of your effort level, it does sound like you are running these a little too hard.

It does sound like you’ve got the balance right though, two easy days and one or two hard days in a week is good.

I might stick to one hard a day if you’re in your three days a week, but you’re resting pulse rate suggests that you’re not overtraining.

You want to try make sure the easy runs feel comfortable as that going to be the worst way to develop aerobically and build up your distance.

First, try slowing down as much as you need to. I’m not sure how you decided on 12-minute miles as a pace, but don’t feel the need to stick.

If you have to slow down to feel comfortable, then do so. Go slow when you need to. These are all about time on the feet.

I know that in some cases it can be hard to slow down enough to feel easy, without it feeling super uncomfortable in terms of your gait and joints. I therefore suggest including some walk breaks whilst you build up the distance.

I know many runners don’t like to do this and it can feel like cheating, but including the walk breaks is such a great way to extend the amount of easy running you can do, whilst keeping the effort level low and keeping your breathing under control.

They can be gradually phased out once you become more comfortable with running your easy pace.

Building up the amount of easy running needy cleanly as walk breaks will help me to be able to run longer distances more comfortably and I think that by doing this you see a lot of improvement in all your running sessions.

But like you say, it does sound like you getting fitter already so please don’t worry too much you’re doing most things right.

The main advice I’d give you is [inaudible 00:05:03] Don’t worry about the effort or heart rate on the hard days they should be hot anyway and try to build up that easy mileage and try to keep it comfortable by including walk breaks.

You could start by using a minute walk break every five to six minutes to help get your breathing under control.

As you get fitter and just stay in control for longer, you can decrease this once every 10 to 12 minutes or reduce the length of the what rate to 30 seconds.

If you can’t keep easy runs super easy at this point even with walk breaks, don’t worry too much. Maybe just leave the workouts like tempos and intervals for a bit e.g. building the distances and steady runs.

That way you’re likely to avoid the overtraining scenario and honestly at this point I think that building up the distance, is going to be the best way for you to improve aerobically anyway.

Don’t worry about pace and just think about time on the feet and when you get to a point where you can run a good few miles comfortably, you can start think about the pace a bit more and getting the exact of level a bit more.

I really hope that helps I honestly think that you’re already on the right track.

Thanks for asking a question I think a lot of people struggle to get those easy runs feeling comfortable and worrying that they are putting in the wrong amount or too much effort, so I hope that’s cleared up a little bit. Best of luck with your training.

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