[Brian Bauer]

Over the past few months I have been running a pursuit. style racing series. the format has been road running races with graduating distances from 4k up to 10k.  there has been a race every 3-4 weeks.  the races have been at. about 3500ft of altitude vs the 5500 where I live( I train. mainly at 6,000ft to 8,000ft). the courses all have similar vert, which would suggest the shorter races would be “harder”. the weather conditions were all similar . I have a very good Evoke coach and this winter has been about aerobic volume at Z1, with some short Z3 intervals once/week.  I am not tired, not overtrained and generally feeling consistently good over the past few months.

so here is the big mystery the question that I cannot figure out:  the data from my races below clearly shows that when my HR goes higher I run faster.( and whats not shown is that I recall the faster races as feeling more effortless and in general “fast”).  but on any given day, I have no idea if my HR will avg 156 or 146.  the efforts are always “race pace”…I am going as hard as possible for the distance.  but my HR performance is like some kind of “HR lottery”…some days I win big and the performance reflects that, other days my performance is average .  It would be nice to figure out how to create HR predictability because it influences these short , fast races so much.  ( my racing goals remain long mountain trail races at altitude, not short road races, but I would still like to solve this HR mystery). Any ideas?

+——-+——+——-+———-+——-+——–+——–+——+———+
| Date    | KM | Miles | Time          | Pace   | Avg HR | Max HR | Vert | Max Pace |
+——-+——+——-+———-+——-+——–+——–+——+———+
| Dec      | 4k |     2.46 |    19:49       | 8:04    | 148          | 153       | 52           | 7:11 |
+——-+——+——-+———-+——-+——–+——–+——+———+
| Jan      | 5k |     3.38 |   25:05:00  | 7:25     | 156         | 168      | 262       | 6:26 |
+——-+——+——-+———-+——-+– ——+——–+——+———+
| Feb      | 8k |     4.99 |.  39:30:00  | 7:55    | 152          | 165      | 253       | 6:41 |
+——-+——+——-+———-+——-+——–+——–+——+———+
| March | 10k | 6.2      | 50:11:00     | 8:05    | 147           | 152      | 266        | 5:58 |
+——-+——+——-+———-+——-+——–+

[Scott Johnston]

Brian, I don’t think you should concern yourself with heart rate. After all, the race is won by the fastest athlete, not the athlete with the highest heart rate. You have seen significant improvements in your pace even though this year, in January, February, and March, each race has gotten longer. The whole point of training for endurance is to improve your performance irrespective of what your heart rate does. I can’t explain the variability in your maximum heart rate that you see, but I just don’t think it’s relevant and that you should just focus on improving your performance and not fixate on heart rate.

I hope this helps.

Scott

[JamesH123]

Heart rate monitoring is an amazing tool for training and measuring your recovery, signs of overtraining etc but as Scott said in a race the only thing that matters is your time/place, if your HR average was 170 in one race then then 164 the next race its a non issue really, if there is a big difference in HR (assuming a similar length race) it could be that you are fatigued going into the race.

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