HR Training

I was a runner for 30 years before I made the cross over to Triathlon.  About 8 years before the cross over I did my first Marathon.  I focused on Marathons for about 2-1/2 years before I gave up on them and decided to focus on Half Marathons.  I rained with a running club for marathons and we often would tell each other you can fake a half Marathon by not a Marathon.  So a half-hearted half you can still go and get a good time.  Everything changes when you are going over about 17-18 miles though.  :-)

As far as run zones go, how did you do your test?  I use either a 5K race or a 30 minute time trial to find my Lactate Threshold pace.  For the 30 minute time trial, I do about a 15-minute warm-up then I start the Garmin recording and I got as fast as I can the full 30 minutes.  I hit the lap key 10 minutes into the work out (with the auto lap turned off) so that I get the average HR for the last 20 minutes of my all-out 30-minute effort.  The average HR is my Lactate Threshold pace.  If you have your data you can check the average to see how that method compares with the Maximum HR method of setting up your HR zones.  For a 5K my average HR is 10-15 BPM above my Lactate Threshold HR.  So I have to take the average minus 13 to estimate my Lactate Threshold HR.  That is another way to Compaq data.

I don't really need to the HR strap to know where my target running pace is though.  I do most of my Training in Zone 2.  When I am in my mid to low zone 2 my breathing is normal.  When I start to hit that threshold between zone 2 and zone 3 my breathing start to get heavy.  So all I have to do to my training place is after my warm-up slow increase the effort until I start to breathe hard.  Then I dial it back just a hair. As soon as I am not breathing hard I am at my Z2 target pace.  When I have the HR monitor I can verify that I am at the right BPM and check back every 5 minutes of so to make sure I am still at the right BPM.  I am usually right on the money.   When I don't have the heart rate monitor to keep me on track I could slow down and not now it because going slow the breathing doesn't change.  I could never go too fast without the HR Monitor though because and soon and the breathing picks up I know I am crossing over into Z3.  So it is best to run with the HRM (mined died 4-5 months ago so I need to get a new one) but if you are looking for a way to verify your HR zones. watch your breathing and it gets labored right at the threshold between your calculated Z2 and Z3 then you have your zones set up correctly.