So, you just picked up a new Apple watch with it’s integrated heart rate monitor. Now what? We see a lot of questions each week about making sense of heart rate - this is intended to be a brief, high-level overview of heart rate training basics.
Heart rate is how quickly your heart is beating. It's measured as the number of times your heart beats in a minute (e.g. 120 beats/minute).
Heart rate is a single measure that incorporates many physiological factors and can give you an idea of how hard your body is working while you run. As you increase effort during a run, your heart will beat faster to keep up with the physiological demands of maintaining that effort. Similar to training by relative perceived effort, by power, or by pace, training by heart rate is a method you can use to gauge your effort when running.
These will give you near real-time readout of your heart rate. There are two main types - optical monitors, which are often included on watches, and chest straps (which usually communicate with your watch for a readout). The chest strap is generally more accurate, but less comfortable.
Do NOT use an online calculator or use 220-age to determine this, as your maximum heart rate could be significantly different than the population-level average. I recommend the method recommended in Daniel’s Running Formula:
With over 700,000 users, there are a lot of posts that come in everyday that are often repeats of questions previously asked or covered in the FAQ.
With that in mind, this post can be a place for any questions (especially those that may not deserve their own thread). Hopefully this is successful and helps to lower clutter and repeating posts here.
What? District Half Marathon
When? September 1
How far? 5K
Website? They don't have one
| Goal | Description | Completed? |
|---|---|---|
| A | < 35 minutes | No |
| B | < 40 minutes | Yes |
| C | Finish | Yes |
Finishing time: 39:02
Rank (overall): 108/336
I started running in July because I had to meet a fitness requirement (5K in 35) for a high altitude trek I was going on. Unfortunately, I never did end up meeting it but the trek guide gave me a pass because I'd been running so much and could meet the requirement for old people which was 5K in 45. Sadly, the trek ended up getting cancelled because of heavy rains and landslides but I got something amazing out of it. I fell in love with running. Mind you, this is coming from a 16 year old who went days without even leaving her room for anything but school before the month of July. As I've watched my timings go from 53 minutes with lots of tears at the beginning of C25K to 39 minutes today, I can without a doubt say that this is the proudest I've ever been of myself. I can't even describe how much happier, just in general, I've been these last couple of months. Not to sound too emo but with school and applying to college, not a lot of things give me joy anymore but I couldn't be happier today. Did I mention I placed first in the Women Ages 14-18 category? That's probably only because there were only 11 other people in the category. Still, my heart jumped when I saw Winner next to my name. I know I'm really slow and don't compare to the sub-20 minute people here but I've only been at this for two months and you bet I'll be training to get faster. That's all for today! Keep going :)
On June 1 I suffered a "trimalleolar fracture" and pretty gnarly dislocation of my right ankle while running an obstacle race (word of advice: always be sure how deep water is before falling in it). June 8 I had ORIF surgery and an arthroscopy to remove bone fragments from the joint, and while still non-weight bearing I was able to start physio two weeks later.
Physio has gone extremely well and after I was given the go-ahead to start weight bearing six weeks ago, my recovery has accelerated like crazy. My overall progress coupled with a very positive follow-up with my surgeon this week (all clear for "high impact activity") led me to set a super tight short term goal: Do 5km before the three month mark.
So, with just today left, I did. It wasn't pretty but I can't put into words how great this feels.
Happy running folks, it's good to be back.
Just wanted to share it with you guys, I made it in 1:54:12. The worst part was 16km/17km but I managed to keep on running and made it in time I set myself. Hope you all arę having a great day, never stop running!
I miss running and I am going crazy. I love being outside during them summer running through my neighborhood and through local parks and trails. It's such a great stress reliever. It's so peaceful.
A week and a half ago I had a surgery on both of my feet. I had a bilateral bunionectomy (genetic and have been noticeably painful since 11 years old, now 27). I can walk (...well, hobble) very short distances (and have a wheelchair for most anything outside of the house) but I cant bend my foot and most of my weight has to stay on my heal. I feel like it's doing lasting damage to my gait.
So I am off of my feet for at least another month. I keep an eye on /r/running. I can't wait to start back up again. I've never been able to run longer than a 5k, and if I ran that long I would have pain for days. I'm making goals for things I want to accomplish once my feet are fully healed. I want to regularly be able to run 5ks and participate in races and park runs. I really want to train for 10k.
I'm not positive on the purpose of my post. Thanks everyone for being so inspirational. Reading this thread is helping me through this. I feel like im living vicariously through you guys. I've always been so impressed by runners and I cant wait to be able to finally run longer distances and start working toward the goals I've made.
I’ve been wanting to run regularly for years now, but I’ve never actually stuck with it. I used to be a dancer but had to stop for health reasons. This summer I’ve started to run consistently every other day ~3-5k because I liked the mental clarity and energy that came with it. It helped me get through exams. I felt like I had some real breaks where my mind wasn’t occupied with worries about uni. It has been getting easier to go for a run and to keep running without breaks, too. I was also very proud to run a 5k in 35 Minutes. The marathon event in my town offers a half marathon and a 10k, so I signed up for the 10k. Mainly so that I have something to look forward to keeping it up. I don’t think I will be particularly fast or anything, but I’m making a dream come true that I didn’t really think was possible for me. Because I never stuck with running for more than 4 consecutive runs. I’ve been a lurker in this community for a while now and it really helped motivate me. I’m so glad that I started running and hope to keep it up.
If anyone has tips for my first 10k or specific running tips for women, let me know!
What? 4F Praski Half Marathon
When? August 30, 2019
How far? 21K
| Goal | Description | Completed? |
|---|---|---|
| A | < 1:50 | No |
| B | < 2:00 | Yes |
| C | to finish | Yes |
I started the preparation 12 weeks before the event, though I was running also before, usually one short (~5K) and one longer (up to 10K) run per week. Once I started preparing, I was running 2-3 times per week with obligatory long runs on the weekends. These built up from around 10K to 20K. For the last two long runs I simply run for 2h. During the weekdays I would have one straightforward 5K run and one run with more fun, doing intervals, or trying to beat PB on some short distances (< 3K). Halfway through the preparations I had a nice 5K trail with my SO, finished in 23 minutes. I also hit a gym 2-3 times per weeks focusing almost exclusively on strengthening the core muscles.
One week before the race I went mountain biking with my friends. These were great 4 days of quite intensive biking for 3-4 hours per day.
This was my first half-marathon and my main goal was to finish. The preparations gave me confidence that finishing it in 2 hours is possible and if I fell good I might try to go faster. My strategy was to start slow and around 11K to check how it goes and if possible increase the tempo.
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