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Is it Me or the Equipment!?

jim ebertjim ebert
in General Training Discussions

i normally train at sea level on the Outer Banks of NC. On a run i aim to be in my HR zone 3 ( it generally takes 5 - 10 minutes of jogging/running) and push up to zone 4 by increasing my foot strikes to 30 per ten seconds when i move into intervals. i may try for zone 5 if my training calls for it but seldom can i reach zone 5 on my HR monitor.... Now i go to Las Vegas (to visit relatives, but i always "burn" $5 in a slot machine) and run with my sister-in-law. within 2 minutes i'm high in zone 3 without any real effort (25-26 foot strikes per ten seconds). i remain in high z3 to mid z4 just loping along! just for fun i run at 30 foot strikes per ten seconds...i'm in z5!?. this continued for our 8 mile run. i'm barely jogging and remain well in z3!? Can elevation or low humidity do that!? Or is my Garmin acting up again? i must admit for some reason my Garmin won't down load any of my data since i went traveling for the holidays. i'm not a good marketing tool for Garmin!

Comments

  • Al TruscottAl Truscott

    Elevation @ Las Vegas (2000'?) is not high enough to cause any appeciable drop off in performance. Temps there now (45-50?) not high enough to have an effect. What about Jet Lag? Were yo0u running in a hilly area, compared to the flat banks you're used to? Change in diet, sleep? What about your RPE - did you feel like you were working any harder to hold the dsame pace?

    HR is a notoriously unreliable means of comparison - it will be easier to get higher HR in PM than AM, be dependent on temperature and terrain changes. If you could hold the same pace with the same RPE, don't sweat the HR changes you noted.

  • jim ebertjim ebert
    Not sure of the elevation. i was i the foot hills of any mountains. temp was in upper 50s. No change in terrain, no jet lag, sleep/diet ok. the run felt very easy! i sometimes wonder why i even use the HR monitor. maybe just for something to do. tks Al
  • FredwhansenFredwhansen
    I guess I've been using HR monitors for almost 20 years, and you can't always rely on them. When my Garmin acts up though it's usually reading extremely high (180's-220's) so I know not to pay attention to it. It's a helpful tool still. I have to pair my Garmin and laptop connectivity for every download for quite some time now, but at least I know that I have to do that to get my downloads.
  • jim ebertjim ebert
    I have had the same issue with super high readings. the failures seem 2 come during races! i wish HR mons were more dependable!
  • Dino SartiDino Sarti
    Did you look at the actual beats per minute? The zones may be off if the unit is getting fickle. Meaning is might have your zones cocked up. If you looked at the beats rather than zones data field, you could have gone old school and place two finger on a pulse point and counted. That will tell you about systems issues.

    I agree with Al, if it felt easy, it was easy.... Probably just the zones.
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