Monitoring Your Heart Rate
One of the most popular training gadgets is the heart rate monitor, which is very useful in what is known as effort-based training. Time spent during a run is not always the best indicator of successful training. In fact, depending on conditions, you might feel that you had a bad run because you slowed down at some points and seemed to struggle at others. With a heart-rate monitor, you might discover that your “bad” run was actually pretty good.
Most heart rate monitors work with a strap that goes around the chest. The strap has sensors that detect the heartbeat and send a radio signal to a watch on your wrist. You can monitor your heart rate continually as you work out, increasing the intensity or cutting back according to your training plan.
If you don't like the idea of figuring your maximum heart rate on paper, you can pay $150 or more to a health club or a physician to put you through a test to designed to give you a definitive answer. Here's a more practical alternative: wear a heart rate monitor in a 5K and go all out in the race. That's about as good as anything, and the entry fee won't be more than about $15.
Number Crunching
There are different ways to determine your maximum heart rate. Here are three:
Subtract your age from 220. The sum is your maximum heart rate.
Subtract half your age from 205.
Subtract 80 percent of your age from 214.
The latter two formulas are more appropriate for people who are active and fit. The formulas aren't completely accurate, but they are close enough for you to use in designing your workouts.
Bad to Good
Now, back to how a “bad” workout can turn out to have been good. Say your run took you over some difficult trails or hilly terrain. You slowed noticeably because of the impediments, so you thought you weren't doing very well on your run. With a heart rate monitor, you would be able to see that although your pace slowed, your effort remained constant, as reflected in your heart rate. You had a useful workout, not a poor one.
As you might expect, heart rate monitors come with a wide variety of features beyond the basics of showing the heart rate and keeping time. You can find heart rate monitors that allow you to set a minimum heart rate for your workout, with an alarm to tell you if you drop below the minimum. Similarly, you can set a maximum heart rate.
There are heart rate monitors so advanced that they record virtually every aspect of the run and then download the data to your computer. You can get the fancy heart rate monitors to do just about everything except run.
On the Alert
Besides improving your workouts, a heart rate monitor can help you avoid overtraining or undertraining. Signs of overtraining include a sluggish feeling, an elevated heart rate, and an inability to get the heart rate up. The best way to check is to put on your heart rate monitor when you first wake up in the morning. If your heart rate is higher than the normal resting level, you should scale back your workouts for a week or two. Don't stop working out, just lower the intensity.
Wearing your heart rate monitor during a race can help you keep from overdoing it early. It is a common error for new runners to start their races at breakneck speed. Keeping an eye on your monitor early in the race will help you maintain the kind of pace that lets you finish strong instead of just barely making it.
Most specialty running stores sell heart rate monitors. Let the staff help you determine which model is best for you.
