WORKOUT -
TM run -
10.1 miles/1:21
1. incline
Finally a run without any soreness or tightness in my hip, PTL.
I wore my heart rate monitor (more on that below) and the bpm was 167. Don’t really know what that means.
Do I want the numbers to be low like I’m really fit or do I want them to be high like I’m getting a great workout in??
YESTERDAY
Yesterday we didn’t do much except take the dog on a walk and because my life is boring, I have to make that dog walk sound exciting. Good luck with that…
After talking about heart rate monitors a week or so ago, reader Lori sent me an extra Garmin HRM that she had. Thank you! I had never ever used one before so I just sorta winged it.
I did a little Googling and figured out how to sync up the watch to monitor which was pretty simple.
Then we went walking.
We had to return two Redbox rentals, Man On a Ledge and Haywire. Man was ok but we turned off Haywire within 20 minutes.
We walked 3.15 miles and my average beats per minute was 71. I don’t know if that’s good, bad or dead, but I came home and laid on the couch and my hear rate was 54 so I’m guessing that’s my resting heart rate since I was doing some heavy duty resting.
I wore it again this morning on the treadmill and was glad it didn’t chafe me at all; I even forgot about it until the end of the run.
Anyone know anything about heart rates or should I hit up Dr. Google? Like, what are good or bad numbers?
COFFEE
This afternoon we gave Howard Schultz some money and then drove over to Back Bay in Newport Beach to walk the dog again. Bathing suit season’s coming up and Marni really wants to look her best.
We walked 3 miles which tired the little girl’s legs out. And Marni was pretty wiped too.
MORE COFFEE
I know Julie has high flavored coffee expectations like I do, and I’ve been giving it a valiant effort lately.
I bought a Living Social/Groupon/same store, different name deal for CoffeeForLess and then found a coupon code so I was excited to try out some new flavors.
I bought Chocolate Chip Cookie and Raspberry from the New York Coffee brand and really wanted to fall head over heels with both, but they’re just ehhh. another strikeout.
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{ 46 comments… read them below or add one }
I wear a HRM too. Your target HR depends on what you are trying to achieve. Look at this: http://www.ifafitness.com/book/hr-charts.htm
Everyone is different, and you can factor in the RPE (rate of perceived exertion) too.
Not knowing your exact age, I would say that this may be a tad high. Lower is always better, 220 is the general max where the basic general formula you can use to give you an idea of where you should be would be 220-your age. That gives you your approximate HR max. So I’m 28, and 220-28=192 as my estimated max. Then to figure out what intensity you were working at you just divide your workout stat by your max. If I was at 167 with my max still at 192, that would mean I was working out at 87% of my maximum HR.
Depending on what type of workout this is would determine if it was high or not. If it was an easy run and my body was at 87% effort, that’s rather high. But if it was a speed workout this would be pretty close to where you would want it. HR training can be really tricky to figure out, but I’ve trained like this before and have had great results.
I’m a fan of target heart rates, this measure takes into account your resting heart rate too. a little math but that’s what calculators are for:)
here’s a site for info: http://www.wikihow.com/Calculate-Your-Target-Heart-Rate
also a fan of RPE that Leonor mentioned too, it’s been shown to correlate pretty close to heart rates.
I guess it just really depends on how much you care about the numbers, if you feel like you are working hard chances are you probably are.
Hey SR!!
Your heart rate should be about 85% of your max when you are doing an intense workout! The way to figure that out is:
220- (your age)=your max heart rate then multiply that by 0.85 and you’ll get your 85%!
So for me it would be 220-21=199 then 199 x 0.85- 169
so my heart rate would need to be around 169 for me to be burning fat.
I specialize in exercise tolerance testing (putting people on a treadmill to test cardiac tolerance…. Ie are their signs of heart problems under physical stress).
Anyways, we try to get people to hit their ‘max target heart rate’ for a diagnostic test. 220-age = x bpm
When I’m exercise I try to stick around my sub max, which is (220-age) x 0.85 = submax bpm.
The more athletic you are (and the stronger your heart), the quicker your heart rate will begin to decrease after exercise. In turn, the lower your resting heart rate will be.
When I started exercising, my average resting heart rate was in the the 90s, and my heart rate would sky rocket at minimal exertion. Now that I’m in much better shape, my resting heart rate is in the 70s, and it takes more effort for my heart rate to creep up.
Sorry, I may have just ‘geeked’ out on you! I love things heart related!
Hope this helped!
I love that I hit submit, THEN looked over what I wrote and all my ‘autocorrect’ typos. I swear, I know how to spell, and my use of the English language is infinitely better than what my poor iPhone makes me out to be!
Having such a low resting heart rate like you do is great! It means your heart is very powerful and efficient. It needs to beat less because it efficiently pumps all the necessary blood in less beats per minute. If someone is in poor shape, they need to have a higher resting heart rate because their heart is not as conditioned. Some elite athletes have RHRs in the 40′s. They also recover quickly after exercise, as a previous commenter mentioned.
Agreed, your resting heart rate is awesome and shows the benefit pf all your hard work running. Basically, you’ve done a good job training your heart and this way it has to do less work while you’re at rest, whic os awesome. These are the benefits health-wise of being so active. Your heart rate during your run is a normal range (I’m assuming you’re in late your late 20s). If you’re looking to get technical, the folks who referenced the 85% stuff are accurate, but I wouldn’t fret about it either. I’m a trainer and unless you’re doing HR specific training, I think the most valuable thing about a HR monitor is knowing your calorie output — it helps you fuel more accurately.
Nice to read all of this. My RHR is 42. I wear my hrm for total calories burned. Normally, my HR gets to around the upper 160s, lower 170s when doing speed work. The calculations above show my 85% at 151…(I’m 42). Do I need to slow down to be around the 150 mark?? HR always recovers quickly. Appreciate your thoughts on this, Cat/Lindsey! Thanks.
I’m not an expert by any means, but my suggestion is to not slow down! These are just guidelines and for the general population. If you slow down just because you think you should have a lower heart rate, you won’t run as fast (and thus not up to your full potential!). Keep doing what you’re doing and you’ll be the fastest master around!
Me neither!!! In fact I’ve never even taken it out of the garmin box. I figure if I was 80 and thought I’d keel over from a heart attack then maybe I’d wear it:)
So glad the hub and I weren’t the only ones who shut off Haywire! That movie was so lame!!!
The only flavored coffee I ever liked was coconut.
The previews made Haywire look so good and it was awful. I rented it last weekend from RedBox and shut it off after 30 min. Trust me, the 10 extra minutes you missed, just as horrible as the first 20.
I have no knowledge on the numbers, never used one. If i did it would probably beep like crazy and warn me I was about to die.
Love that back bay trail, run there after work all the time!
This makes me want to use my heart rate monitor with my Garmin. I never had but think maybe I should get going on it!
Sigh I accidently drank iced coffee for dinner. Crap.
http://www.marathon-training-schedule.com/heart-rate-training.html I hope this helps. Pretty good info!
xo
Ok – “fat burning zone” is lame. If you’re huffing and puffing your cells are harnessing every ounce of energy possible this equals more calories burned all over. PERIOD. if you aren’t huffing and puffing – you simply burn less calories but it’s not like your body is like “oh, my hr is low so i’m gonna ask the liver to ask the lipocytes to release some fat to be sent thru the glycogen/glucogon pathway instead of just using all these available carbohydrate sugars already in my cells.”
Sar-bear – your HR is normal. in BQ pace i bet you jump to 175-185 cuz that’s your breakneck pace. you probably hold the 160′s for 2 hours straight no prob-bob. and that’s normal.
your feet, however, are not.
HA! Sooo with you on the HR thing. I was considering getting one but then I was like, I better actually figure it all out before I try to use one otherwise all the numbers and stats won’t mean a thing! Good reading all the feedback on this post though, molto helpful!
54 bpm at rest is awesome!!
As people said before, the theoretical max HR is 220-age. According to that, mine should be 198. Really, it’s 210 though… The only way to know your exact max is to do specific tests, such as Astrand, Leger-Boucher, etc.
So not knowing what your max is, I dont know if 167 is high for you or not (was it average or peak?).
I use my HR to train instead of speed, so for example Ill do an interval training where Ill do 3min 75%, 2min 90% on and on for 30 min.
I prefer using my heart rate than speed because it takes your physical abilities into consideration. I wouldnt use it for a race though, because stress would make your HR go waaaay up!
Check out this website:
http://www.brianmac.co.uk/hrm1.htm
Some useful info about the different heart rate zones, and what your heart rate should be depending on the intensity of your work out. Of course this is a rough calculation, but I use a Suunto HRM when I’m working out and find it very useful to know if I’m trying hard enough or if I ought to slow down a bit! Plus knowing how many calories you’ve burnt is really motivating
Love the blog!
Beki
Wow, 167? That’s like perfect. My heart rate when I’m racing is always 170 or 175, sometimes 180 bpm. An “easy” run for me is about that HR, but it would take me about an hour and a half to run 10 miles. Damn, you’re just a natural! I think HRM/calories is really silly. The minute I stopped counting cals and stopped wearing my HR monitor is when I really started seeing changes in my body. It just can’t take in all of the factors of the human body, hydration, recovery, etc.
Ignore everyone talking about 220-age. That’s so general and doesn’t apply to a vast majority of people. Google lactate threshold test and do one of those. It’s a hard effort, but an easy test to perform. That’s the only way you’ll know your max. My max HR is way diff from 220-age (that formula thinks I’m about 20 years younger; if I used it, I’d never work hard enough).
We saw haywire in theaters…SO terrible and uncomfortable to watch. You didn’t miss anything by turning it off.
totally agree with Carina…the 220-age formula isn’t always correct. for me, 220-41=179…my actual MaxHR is abt 190. It’s best to do a lactate threshold test…or look at the HR at the end of a hard-run 5K. Now once you have your MaxHR, then you can use that to figure out ranges for your runs. Depending on which coach/coaching philosphy you want to follow. I use Pete Pfitzinger’s and his zones are as follows: VO2Max (intervals) 91-94% of HRmax, Threshold (tempo) 77-88% of HRmax, Easy Runs 62-75% of HRmax, long runs 65-78% of HRmax, and recovery runs below 70% of HRmax. there is also a way tofigure in your resting HR to those zones, but i can’t find it right now. HTH. HR training is great! I’ve used it for a couple years now and love it. But you have to remember…HR can be influenced by lots of things…stress, dehydration, heat. so you have to take those into account when using those zone…just know that it will be higher on a hot day. HTH!
If you really want to know what your heart rate should be, you can actually have a test done to set your “zones” personally to you. It is kind of an obnoxious test where they put you on a treadmill with a mask hooked up to some fancy machine, but you then have YOUR zones & V02, and not some general guidelines. I have had mine done at the local gym (which is nowhere near you), but I’m sure you could find somewhere that does it. I always kind of blew off HR based training, but now I find it very useful. I only use it for speed work and various treadmill workouts, but I have seen significant improvements in running speed/performance/recovery since incorporating this.
I wear an HRM all the time but rarely look at it. I would much rather go by feel and not be thinking I should slow down because my HR is too high (according to some standards). My age-graded max HR is supposed to be 191, but I can hold 192 for at least 15 minutes when I really push myself. If I went by the max it should be, I wouldn’t work nearly as hard as I can.
I always examine the data after a workout, though, to see what my HR looked like when I felt like I was working hard or hardly working–if the two correlate, then I’m probably doing OK.
I watched Haywire a few weeks back. The first 30 minutes or so were like pulling teeth! But then it started to get good. It’s one of those movies were you don’t really know what went on until the end and then go “ooooooooh…” BTW, the female lead is a kickass UFC fighter. I think that’s why my husband wanted to watch it…
Honestly, I thought it was HORRIBLE. Gina did an alright job but the movie plot line was just ridiculous, so hard to follow and awkward to watch it was just plain bad. I watched the whole thing through hoping it would get better but for me, it just never did. Even Channing Tatum, as gorgeous as he is, couldn’t save that movie, it was just plain bad. The previews made it look so intense but I found it to be SO boring, very very dissapointed.
I know nothing about hrm’s, I have One but haven’t used it.
We rented those same two movies last weekend, and had the exact same reaction. Wth was that Haywire nonsense?!
i think we were secretly copying each other. i know because i was spying on you through your bedroom window.
How bad was haywire? My bf wanted to put it on and I made myself fall asleep within the first 15 minutes because it was so bad. No bigs, going to bed at 7:30 pm.
Whoa, the HR monitor stuff is way out of my league. But loved your post as always! What are those cute pink shoes you wear?
they are reebok flex transition, i received them when i went to a reebok event last month. they’re really light!
I am relieved to know that someone else doesnt know about this heart rate monitor stuff!!! You’ll have to update us with all the good info you receive!
Hi Skinny-
This is my first comment- I’ve been lurking (sorry to be rude).
I love your blog.
I’m a cardiac RN- so I can sort of help on the HR issue. However, for the best info. you can google TARGET HEART-RATE and that will help you with tons of info. and help you know where your personal target HR is. There will be different numbers for different types of exercise and goals you want to achieve. Basically I didn’t help you one bit- besides refer you to Google.
Kelly
no worries, thanks for joining in the convo!
I just started to wear my monitor that came with my Garmin last week and was doing some reading about using HR to increase mileage safely. Since I just finished my first marathon 2 weeks ago, I’ve been staying in the easy/recovery HR zone. I’ve definitely realized that a “recovery” heart rate is much slower than I do my easy runs usually. It’s been kinda cool using it – haha just another number to add to my run data.
Hey! I am an RN, for a resting heart rate, you should be between 60 and 100….runners and super-athletic people will some times be a little lower. We don’t like to see a heart rate EVER get above 165-even if active!:)
HUGE flavored coffee expectations. sadly, i’m let down time and time again. maybe that’s why those coffee chains make the big bucks?
Absolutely appreciate this post! I had just been considering this topic the last time I ran. I always wear a HRM to keep the heart condition I have in check; I wondered what an average runner’s HR . Great comments on this matter. Thanks
I am following the Maffetone Method of heart rate training and am having good results with fat burning by staying within my target zone of max heart rate. After 3 1/2 months I am beginning to notice I stay at my max heart rate longer.
http://philmaffetone.com/180formula.cfm
I’m glad it worked for you! Hopefully you can take an advanced Calculus class soon to figure out what all the numbers mean!
There is lots of stuff on the internet about the heart rate (like max. heart rate about 220- age), but in the end the only way to find out what is right for YOU is to test it. You get on a treadmill and have to run at different speeds (when I did it, was three minutes each). In the 30 seconds between, they take a little blood from your ear to test the lactate content. It says something about how exhausting whatever you do that moment is. People are so different, all these recommendations you get are a good guess at best. They showed me an extreme – the test result of one woman, whom started with a heart rate of already 170 at an easy jog, but then did not go up a lot even when running her fastest. Other people always have a really low heart rate.
I myself have a quite high heart rate even when resting, and my max. heart rate ended up higher than the estimated 220-29.
Since you’ve been running for a long time, your rate probably is perfectly fine – if you don’t have any problems. But if you don’t have a test, most you can do is see how it is evolving (if at all) or if you have days where it’s completely out of whack. And where you would want your heart rate to go depends on what you want to achieve. But again, you only can say something accurate about that if tested.
I found this article to be pretty helpful to get started with running with a HRM: http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,7120,s6-238-267–1039-1-2X5-2,00.html – I even made a handy dandy Google Doc where you can input your age and it spits on the HR zones for you: http://bit.ly/heartratechart. I’ve been wearing a HRM pretty consistently during my runs for about a year now and generally follow that chart.
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