I started running again in fall 2013 after a long lull of ten years. I was never a good runner, and I found not only was my natural talent lacking, but my form was, too. I watched a bunch of YouTube videos on it and gave it another go. It turns out having good form took care of my joint pain.
About two months ago I bought a Garmin fitness watch. It included a heart rate monitor. I partly justified this thinking about my mountain snowshoe hikes; when I pause I can hear my heart going "tickticktick." I figured monitoring it could be interesting and helpful. But as long as I was running, I'd use it there, too.
Right off the bat, my heart rate was much too high. The normal calculation people do is Max HR = 220 - age. This gives 185 for me. Then they shoot for running with their heart rate around 80% of their Max HR. I was constantly in the 180s and even over 190 when I was running my typical 2-4 mile runs.
So I made a point of running slower. I gave myself a 180 bpm heart rate maximum. This is still too high, but I had to start somewhere. My watch alarms if I hit 180, telling me to slow down (or sometimes me telling it to shut up as I'm almost up this hill).
I've also started doing interval runs. These are supposed to help strengthen your cardiovascular system, and a stronger system needs to pump less often.
Today I looked for similar runs to compare. I have two roughly two mile runs in the flat subdivision where I live.
February 27 I ran 2.15 miles averaging 9.00 min/mi with an average HR of 168 bpm and max HR of 188 bpm.
March 17 I ran 2.06 miles averaging 8:49 min/mi with an average HR of 162 bpm and max HR of 176 bpm.
So my conclusion, and why I felt it was worth sharing, is I think paying attention to my heart rate has helped. These times are still slower than if I just give it all; I could come in under 8:00 min/mi on this route. But I do think I'll keep making speed gains and will definitely be making distance gains. This feels as important as those YouTube videos a couple years ago. It feels like learning to run all over again and coming out at the end enjoying it so much more. Unexpectedly, running seems to be morphing from something I do to stay fit to something I enjoy for itself.
The heart rate monitor helped me, but just the observation of where my body starts to say "we can't keep this up" has helped me. My watch doesn't yell at me much anymore, and I'm probably going to lower the alarm threshold.
I went out running two to three times a week for something like seven months with a HRM before switching to another sport. I usually have problems with sticking to a habit like that, and I can attribute my unusual diligence almost entirely on the HRM and data-tracking with Endomondo. Having multiple metrics to judge my run by instead of just 'it went okay' definitely motivated me. Does your watch also track calories per run? I found that to be a good measure of effort, especially with a HRM. Speeds can vary but I always tried to keep the calorie trend upwards. When it comes to your ideal running speed and heart rate, I used a treadmill to figure out what's best for me. My completely unscientific measure was that I should be able to sustain 10 minutes at that speed and not be completely out of breath.
I believe wasoxygen is currently in the midst of a running experience (?) and may find this interesting. I'm curious -- everyone's body is a little different, so did you ask a doctor about your heart rate? I wonder if you came to the right conclusion. Maybe you're an edge case.
I haven't asked my doctor yet. I usually do an annual checkup mid-year, and I'll bring it up then. I should have more observations, too, which might help the discussion. My resting heart rate seems to be lower since I've been checking it, and my active rate might come down, too. I agree I might be an edge case. The articles I've read say things like "220 - your age _but everyone is different_." So yeah, I might be right on the money despite being 10% above typical. For now, the HRM is helping me gauge how I feel against a number. Feeling pretty exhausted? Yep, look, I'm up at 182 bpm. I need to slow down if I want to keep going. Four miles from the car. Should I keep going? I feel good, and yep, I'm at 168 bpm. I'll push on another mile. I'll see how it goes through the spring. I've thought about looking for a running coach, someone who can help me understand numbers and train better. There is so much I'm still learning, but eventually I'm going to hit my ability to understand how to do better.
I was merely running in the rat race: squeezing a first-ever visit to a financial advisor in between the kid's guitar lesson and finishing the #evox cW sent about Debt: The First 5000 Years. I mentioned the idea of debt forgiveness in the Jubiliee year to the banker, and he smiled indulgently. My best time out of five 5Ks was set last November, and I intentionally did not pay attention to my watch after reading about Kenyan runners who use watches in training but often go by feel in competition. I wonder if I might have pushed a little harder had I seen 11:48 on the clock at the halfway point, but ended up finishing with a negative split in 22:05 and a heart rate at the finish of 193. I am pretty uncomfortable pushing beyond 180. Resting heart rate is easy to track, and I have seen some reduction, to below 60. Nothing like the Ice Man, Björn Borg, whose heart is said to rouse itself to pump just once every two seconds. WanderingEng, do you have RHR numbers you can share?
I didn't have any RHR numbers but just recorded a couple. I should have been doing this for a while. Anecdotally, I feel like I often saw mid to upper 70s. I'd check it but not record it. I saw your question at work and counted 60 bpm (measuring over 30 seconds and doubling). Just now, after dinner but again idle, I counted 68. In my iPhone I apparently measured it 11/8/2014 in the morning at 69 bpm and 11/9/2014 late morning at 81 bpm. I do think I've been improving lately, both based on numbers and how I feel. I went by feel for my Saturday run. I didn't check my heart rate more than a few times, such as deciding if I should make a longer detour and at the top of a notable hill. I even ignored the mile times. Opposite to you, that may have ended with me going slower, but speed wasn't so much my goal as distance, and I do think ignoring helped me go further. Instead of getting wrapped up in running numbers through my head like how far I had to go or how long it would take, I just thought about how I felt. Websites I've read suggest doing intervals on hills can improve your cardiovascular strength (to a point), and I started those last week with sets two days. I think it's already helped, but I still took today off. My knees feel just a little off from the weekend, and I'm being careful about not overdoing it. I should be fine tomorrow.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B6rn_Borg#cite_note-37 Gotta get snopes on the case. EDIT: why the fuck did I just read that entire article. I'm a busy man. I think my brain is trying to sabotage me.
Lemme guess. It's a Polar. I went through the same thing in 2008. I didn't get the heart rate monitor for running; I was running and when I moved to California I decided that some upper-body stuff would be good so I bought an ergometer. It would read a Polar so might as well, right? What I discovered is that the Polar wanted me in a stupid place between speed-walking and slow jogging, which was intolerable. I could keep at its happy heart rate on the erg for an hour and a half at a time but with all the hills around where I lived, it was a constant frustration of running ten paces, then walking five, then running seven, then walking eight. What worked for me was running further. In High School I ran like eight miles a day. After my misadventures with the HRM I bumped from 2 to 3.5-4 mi and enjoyed it a lot more. And a pair of these. Took a minute off my mile times... at least for a couple weeks. Then I think I broke a metatarsal. Then the shoes were so hammered that I can't really use them the way they're supposed to be used without thinking about it way too hard. At least they weren't expensive. Oh wait, yes they were.
It's a Garmin Forerunner 230, one of Garmin's midrange watches. I should have said while my pace is slower and my heart rate "too high," it feels good. It feels like the kind of pace I can keep up for a long time. So while conventional wisdom says I should have my heart rate down around 148 bpm, as long as I stay around 165-170 bpm on average terrain, it doesn't wear me down. If I really was around 148 bpm, I think I'd be in the same boat as you. The heart rate monitor isn't strictly necessary. For me it helped me understand when and why I'd struggle to go further, and it's given me the confidence to go further. But could one do that without the HRM? Definitely.
I recently got a Fitbit. I also normally run ~20 miles 5x a week, with those 20 miles split into distances from a mile to 8.5 miles. At first I would check the Fitbit during my run. However, I found this made me anxious and generally made me push myself too hard. I would think my heart rate is too low or my mile splits seem high. After awhile I got fed up with it and forced myself to not check it at all during my runs. Now I just listen to my body when I run, and check to see what the Fitbit says about my run afterwards. I've found I have greater peace of mind AND better results.
I'm in a similar boat. The Garmin's heart rate alarm is helpful for me because I can (and do) ignore it for the most part, but if I start pushing hard it reminds me to consider if I should slow down (nearing the crest of a hill might be a reason not to). It's helpful as a tool, but it's only a tool to help me understand myself. It won't actually help me run.
I now understand why I'm so sad when I read post like that. Or about meditation app, and calorie tracking. You might substitute external motivation for your internal motivation: http://uk.businessinsider.com/block-criticism-intrinsic-external-motivators-do-it-for-you-2016-3 Numbers, stats, tracker are great, I love them... until they replace what's important.
I feel I have a mix of trackers and personal motivation that works for me. You're definitely right, people can and do get buried in numbers and miss the reasons that matter most. For me it's a mix of using them to motivate myself. I want to run further or faster, and tracking my runs helps me do that. And the heart rate monitor helps me understand what my body is telling me. I probably worded it poorly. Seeing my high heart rate wasn't a "my heart rate is wrong" moment, it was "what can I learn from this?" What I learned is that may explain why I find it hard to go further, and doing runs designed to strengthen my heart can lower it for all runs. It'a helped me get back to what I wanted: to do more.