Right now I am running for about one year which isn’t long yet. So I don’t have a lot of experience. The only experience I got is how my body reacts with running. Sometimes it’s difficult for me, because of my diabetes.
I like to put all experience of others together and try to experiment on my own. One guy did the Rotterdam Marathon and I noticed that after 20k he hit the man with the hammer. So I talked to him and he said his heart rate was too high in the beginning of the race.
Running on Heart rate
At this moment I am able to run 20k without any problems. Of course my goal is also to run a marathon in november. To train I do some long runs, interval runs and VO2max runs. But what is a good heart rate to run a marathon, 10k, or 5k ? I still don’t know if my theoretical heart rate is good for a marathon, but it works for the rest.
Every person got a max heart rate. Now there are some formulas and then my max heart rate will be about 176. During some runs I manage to hit the 182, but for now I am still using the 176.
There are 5 heart rate zones and I define them different. Now on the zones, but on the distance !
Let’s explain it.
When I am running a 5k, I can manage to keep my heart rate at a maximum (My zone 5) without loosing pace. So got every distance a zone. This way I don’t see the man with the hammer !
And when I am running at a marathon pace (My Zone 2), I’ll keep my heart rate under 155 bpm. So instead of running on a constant pace, my heart rate is constant. The big advantage which I notice, is that I can run a lot without getting tired ! I have enough breath and even after almost a 20K run I can sprint the last 400 meters with >15 km/h !
On a Sunday I did a trainingsrun with some others in the Amsterdamse Bos. This was nice and there were pacers. So the speed was almost constant. What I noticed was that my heart rate was going up a little bit and my legs were getting more tired then my own runs. Of course I run now faster then my own endurance runs.
Conclusion :
Running on heart rate is a method when you want to have a run without seeing “The man with the Hammer”. Sometimes your running times won’t be a personal record and for me my goal is to finish at the Marathon in November at around 04:30 without any problems.
I like this way, because it’s improving my pace and performance and recovery is faster then normal !
With this pace and heart rate, I could finish the marathon in 04:30 ! We will see in november !
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