Heart rate

The physio would like me to get my lactate threshold tested once I'm strong enough to run on a treadmill to that intensity. Her belief is that I've been running too close to my 'race pace' during training and that this has put too much stress on my body; perhaps even to the extent of some overtraining.

Today I took the train to London and in a running magazine found an article containing the following phrases:

"...new runners...often push themselves too hard..."

"Most runners don't work on this easy aerobic base enough."

"...runners also tend to have a very narrow pace window..."

This all sounded very familiar so I rummaged around and found the hart rate strap for my Garmin 110. I expected the battery to be flat but it worked!

I was surprised to find that even on easy sections, that is shallow descents, my heart rate didn't drop below 120bpm and on the shorter ascents it exceeded 150bpm. This is a little shocking as although I haven't had any laboratory investigations it would seem likely that my aerobic heart rate should not exceed 135bpm and that 150bpm is going into lactate threshold territory (tables in 'The Lore of Running' and see below).

Typical heart rate estimation from http://www.brianmac.co.uk/hrm1.htm

The take home message from this seems to be GO SLOWLY.