Why I Use a Heart Rate Monitor

Ask a runner if a heart rate monitor is important and you'll get one of two answers. Either a hearty "Yes!" with an explanation of the merits of heart rate training, or else a resounding "No!" with why using a heart rate monitor is a big waste of time. Since yesterday was a rest day, I thought I would spend today discussing why I'm in the camp with the "Yes" men.

Before using an HRM, I ran every training run like it was a race. My PRs plateaued and I wasn't getting any better. It took Advanced Marathoning by Pete Pfitzinger to connect the dots.

My introduction to a heart rate monitor occurred about three years ago. At the time, my daughter and youngest son were pretty serious about rowing. They were going to a local rowing gym run by Olympic Gold Medalist Xeno Muller. One of Xeno's motivating speeches is the importance of aerobic conditioning. He credits his conditioning for his Gold Medal in 1996 and Silver Medal (despite having a chest cold) in the 2000 Olympics. Part of my kids training involved understanding this concept. They were required to use a heart rate monitor. Every few weeks, Xeno would perform a blood lactate test on them. After a good warm up, a blood sample would be taken and a testing device used to measure lactate concentration. Then, the intensity of the workout would be increased and another sample taken. This would be repeated for about 30 minutes. Xeno would then construct a graph of heart rate vesus lactate concentration. The point where the curve took off provided visual feedbck to the rower about the heart rate where lactate treshold occurred. Then, to aerobically train, the rower simply rowed or ran or cycled for hours on end just below (10 beats lower) that rate. Train harder and lactate would build at a rate faster than the body would flush it - reducing the effectiveness of each workout and leading to more time required for recovery, essentially taking time away from the time that *should* be used to build an aerobic base.

The same philosophy holds for running. The key to any good training plan are the hours and miles we put in at intensities below lactate threshold to build aerobic conditioning. Now - do we need a heart rate monitor to do that? Nope. Not at all. Running slow can be completely done by feel or by pace. But, the reason that Xeno used an HRM was to concentrate on heart rate instead of pace to measure a workout's effectiveness. He was a huge proponent that this was a more accurate measure to use when conditioning.

Now - back to the original question - why do I use a HRM? Well, I've bought into Xeno's philosophy. My daughter ended up with a scholarship. My son was racing internationally in the single scull by the time he was 16. It obviously worked for them. I use my heart rate monitor to make sure that I am not training too hard when I shouldn't be or not training hard enough when I should be. In theory, it keeps me out of lactate threshold when I shouldn't be there, and gets me there when I should be. If I ran purely by pace, I would have run too hard on Wednesday. My recovery run wouldn't have been a recovery run, but another lactate threshold run.

Should you use an HRM? If you are the type of person who would be bugged because the HRM is telling you to slow down, then it's probably not for you. If you want to (and can) run every hard workout BTTW, then it's not for you. But, if you are the type of runner who is frustrated because your PRs have seemed to plateau, or you can't seem to shake the injury bug, or you are frustrated that you just can't seem to get over that hurdle from 10K to Half or Half to Full, then maybe the problem is your aerobic conditioning. A HRM may help you stay out of lactate threshold and spend more time in your ideal aerobic zone. One thing for sure - it will make you understand that patience is a virtue.

In closing I can tell you this - using an HRM is not going give me the athletic talent to run a sub 4 marathon. But, I can't help but think that using my HRM has helped me get into better shape and has kept me from being injured. It has definitely kept me from turning every training run into a race. It's the reason that I am starting to worry about finding the *time* train these days.

Four Mile Monday

I'm beginning to sound like a broken record here - but that just tells me that training is going well. Yesterday was a four mile easy run. Finished with a heart rate of 80% MHR at a pace of 9:19. This is the fastest that I've run this training distance. Maybe this heart rate training is starting to do some good? The best part of yesterday's run is that the only thing that was tired were my legs - but they were tired when I started!

Ever since reading Pfitzinger's book (Advanced Marathoning), I've been trying to use heart rate as my prime metric. Pfitzinger does a great job in his book discussing the importance of heart rate (actually heart rate reserve) as the key factor in gaining fitness and efficiency. This is the basis of the old "train slower to race faster" adage. I am often suprised at the number of runners who finish a workout with nothing left in the tank. I see it every weekend with my running club. For the first year I ran, I thought that I had to approach each training run like it was a race. I had no idea that by doing so I was leaving my race performance on the training trails. One thing for sure - once I started slowing down and staying within my targets, I saw my PRs drop - 3 minutes in the 10K, 6 minutes in the half marathon. Reading Pfitzinger's book really did a lot to help me start maturing as a runner. I would say that thanks to Pfitzinger and those whom I read religiously (both on the Runner's World Forums and here on the Blogger), I've made my way out of preschool and into kindergarten.

Finally, I'm going to need to shuffle my race schedule (and my training schedule) around a bit. I have to be in Grand Rapids MI on the 23rd, and to get there I'll need to leave pretty early Sunday the 22nd. This means that I can't run the Spirit Run. That's too bad, becuase it is a local run that benefits some of the schools my kids went to. Oh well. I guess I need to make a living to pay their college bills. I need to find anther 10K to run either the week before or the week after. I'll go on the search tonight!

10 Miler

So after a leisurely morning (actually slept in, went over to my favorite coffee house and had my coffee, finally hit the trail at 8 AM), I did my LSD around the Back Bay. I am starting to focus more on heart rate and less on pace. My heart rate averaged 140 over the course of the run, although for the last couple of miles I know I was up over 150.

Which brings me to my next point - I will be adapting Pfitzinger as my next training plan for the OC Marathon, and use the Higdon Intermediate Half for the Southern California Half Marathon. This time, I want to start paying more attention to training in the proper heart rate range. Basically, according to Pfitzinger, I need to know the following information:

• Maximal Heart Rate: I took a look at all of the data in my Garmin, I can see that my MHR is 177 bpm. All of my other rate zones are calculated from this value
• Lactate Threshold Rate: This is 80 to 90 percent of MHR, or 142 to 160 bpm
• Long Run Pace: This should be 73 to 83 percent of MHR, or 130 to 147 bpm

This means I guessed about right today!

Six Mile Tuesday (Again)

The plan says five, but in my quest to get more base miles, I added one mile to yesterday's workout to total six. Nothing earth shattering about this run. Took off on the NAC South run like so many times before. Six miles at a pace a little more than easy, but definitely not hard. I managed an average pace of 9:58 and an average heart rate of 151.

I have just finished the sections in Pfitzinger's Advanced Marathoning book where heart rate is discussed - looks like I have a couple of things to check to optimize my training. The important thing that I have gleaned from the book is the same that many rowers that I know use - train at lactate threshold to maximize training benefits. So, I guess I need to figure out my lactate threshold. Maybe on Sunday I'll run hill repeats to figure out my maximal heart rate, and then try to get my resting heart rate Saturday morning after my rest day Friday.

Today's workout should be somewhat challenging - 12X200. For me, 200's are not as tough as 400's - so that's something to look forward to. Of course, 12 of them - well that's a different story....