Max HR Question / First 8K

Congrats on your first race !!

Max HR is basically meaningless. This thread is a great resource for getting started with HR training:

http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=25733&start=1

Post in that thread or back in this one if you have any questions after reading .

Yes, I have read that post, I am just wondering if I should alter the max heart rate to figure out my zones based on the race max HR or the calculation that I had earlier.

This would move my max HR from 199 up to 206.

THanks,

-Jon

You might want to read it again.  The gist of it is that you should be basing your HR zones on lactate threshold (LT) and not maximum HR as it is highly variable among individuals.

Ahhhh, ok.  I will read it again.

You should not base your training zones on max. HR, you should be basing them off of field time trials to establish your approximate LT.  Having your max. may allow you to prescribe some formulaic standard to what MAY be your LT, but a properly completed field test will be more "correct" in that regard.

And you need to remember that a race HR will not correlate to a training HR.  So even if you ended up doing a 10 or 15k at what might be considered your LT, a field test will result in a lower number (as you mentioned with elevated HR during races).  What I'm saying is that if you establish that your training LT is say 178 bpm, that will not necessarily translate to what would be a race effort at your LT.  You may find that in a race situation you can maintain 184 or so for an hour compared to the 178 in training (just random numberes to give an example).

It is one of the many reasons training by HR is a ballpark range and not exact science.