Heart Rate Monitoring

About 15 years ago, I bought a heart-rate monitor. It had two pieces: the transmitter, which I strapped around my chest, and the receiver, which I wore on my wrist. It seemed to work pretty well, picking up my heart rate accurately and adjusting quickly when my heart sped up or slowed down.

In the end, I didn't find it very helpful for training, but I did learn a few things. I learned, for example, that I have a very low maximum heart rate. Even running as hard and as fast as I could (at the end of an interval workout in one case, at the end of a 5K race in another, running up an 11% grade in a third), my heart rate never climbed above 165. This was far below the "predicted Max HR" of 220 minus my age, which suggested I should be around 185-190.

Most of the time, my heart rate was in the 120-130 range. I had to run pretty hard to get it as high as 150. I also learned that my heart rate response varied somewhat from day-to-day depending on how much sleep I had gotten the previous night, how hot it was, and other factors.

At the time, I was training with a guy who ran very similar times for most distances. Well, actually, his marathon times were better, but otherwise our performances were within several seconds for the 5K, 8K, 10K, and half marathon. He was much more serious about heart-monitor training, and used his monitor constantly. he had no trouble getting his heart rate to 160 on an "easy" aerobic run, and hit regularly 190 in his races.

My resting HR at the time was about 40, his was about 60.

An article in the NY Times today discusses the fascination with heart rate monitoring, but also its limitations. The Flutter Over Heart Rates.

The article makes several points that confirm what I experienced. The formula for predicting Max HR is "notoriously inaccurate," training based on HR often fails to take into account individual differences in HR response. the author also makes an interesting point: If you THINK that a particular heart rate is associated with a particular level of fatigue, the thought becomes self-fulfilling: you feel fine until you see that your heart rate is high and all of a sudden you feel tired.

I stopped using my heart rate monitor after a while. I just didn't find it to be that helpful. It was distracting and never seemed to correlate with the work that i was doing in my run. I don't doubt that some people find heart rate useful as a training guide, but for me it never clicked.

There's another reason that stopped using the monitor. After a while, it got kind of creepy to have so much information about what my autonomous nervous system was doing to regulate my heart rate. The first time that I watched my heart rate come down from 150 to 78 in a matter of a few minutes it was very cool. The tenth time, I decided I'd really rather let my body take care of this by itself, without having my mind "looking over its shoulder."