Making the switch from running with pace to running with heart rate

benvanmarcke

Question - has anyone made the switch from running with pace to running with heart rate, and if so, how did it impact your run fitness / speed?

I've switched from pace to heart rate about 4-5 weeks ago, basically driven by the lack of flat roads in my area making it difficult to know what the true pace is I am running at. In other words, pace may work when it's flat but it's off when running 1 or more % uphill, or 1 or more % downhill, against a headwind, etc, leaving very little time where true pace is actually accurate. It also means to have an accurate pace in training I can't go and run on trails, in hills, etc which I enjoy too much not to do that. I've also bought into the philosophy that running just on pace doesn't tell you anything about today's fitness or fatigue so training may be too hard or not hard enough.  

Ever since making the transition I've noticed I have to work much harder to keep the heart rate in the desired training zone, and end up running faster for the entire run. In a local olympic tri and half marathon the week after I've clearly noticed an improvement in speed.

Has anyone else experienced the same thing? Tips and watch-outs? 

 

Al Truscott

Ben ... I live in a hilly area, e.g., it's a mile and 200' up right out the door, and the rollers go on from there. When I started with EN in 09, I was an HR runner. Over the years I have gravitated to running via RPE, rather than going back to HR. I use all three metrics -HR, RPE, & pace- relying on pace over the longer term. Say, 4 miles @ MP, the pace tends to even out over that distance. I use RPE for moment to moment guidance, and HR as a check to make sure I'm not working too hard or too little. But truthfully, HR helps less than RPE, as it has a lag going up hills, is affected by time of day, temp, etc.

Also, I do all my interval work (TP or faster, one mile or shorter) on a track. There's a cinder one 1/2 mile (up) from my house, and a ruberized college track on the way to work. No way I'd prefer HR pace for that stuff.

Think of locking in your sense of RPE for various speeds as part of your training. It will then become second nature on race day.

new2703

I use heart rate mainly as a recovery tool and when running in the heat. Basically to lazy to figure out new heat related paces. I'm also using it as an indicator for when to start running intervals. After IM texas took one week off and two weeks of very easy running heart rate < 130-135. Started 4 weeks of running prep in which all runs are done Zone 1 heart rate. When I start doing interval work is when my Zone 1 heart rate corresponds to my Zone 1/2 pace, which happened this week. Once start back to normal training will use pace for interval work and pace and heart rate for interval work. for the longer runs, I like to follow pace and see how heart rate corresponds unless it is hazy hot and humid

morpheus

I've found that my short & steep hills around here can be very challenging to do pace work, too 3-10%er's that take anywhere from 30'' to 4' to climb. I've tried holding interval paces and 'bout killed myself. And, I've tried HR guidance and found that it is too costly. Ya know how Pnorm is the physiological cost of the spiked watts? Meaning, that the spikes have a bigger impact on the effect than the steady watts? I have started applying that philosophy to running these hills.

If I attack these hills, whether by pace or by HR, I might shorten my intervals or even the whole workout. Not by much, but I even out the 'impact'. Something like...if I run a hard flattish wko for an hour, then my 'physiologically comparable' hill workout might only be 45-50'.

But, I rarely attack hills on the runs, unless the schedule calls for some kind of repeats.

I've gravitated to something like what Al described. I have ~3.5 miles of rollers, net gain, up to the local mega high school. I run these 'steady', that's steady up and pushing slightly over and holding down. Not really looking at pace, cuz like you said, numbers are all over the place. All RPE. Some days I feel better and the numbers are slightly faster, some days I have to go easier cuz there's nothing in the tank. I use it as something that most would call a warmup but for me it probably falls into z3 type effort. Then, pace work at the track with numbers. Then, z3/z2 effort over those same rollers on the way home.

I typically call these run workouts ''Efforts'' rather than ''Paces''....Marathon Effort vs Marathon Pace, Threshold Effots vs Threshold Pace, etc.

Strength workout for sure, despite numbers being skewed down.

Bottom line, I just found that HR training for intervals on rollers was just as difficult to manage as using pace. Too much headache. RPE is the most honest real time feedback, for me. And, in my case, the safest way to avoid an injury.

Note: I probably shouldn't be allowed to post in any run thread cuz I'm about as average as they come. However, these are the kind of tweaks that I've developed over the last 3 years with EN that have me believing that I have potential for better runs than I thought were possible when I came here, even as I get older.

robin sarner

Last two iron races, have started using heart rate as a factor, during the race,     Helps me milk some speed out of the earlier miles.      Or at least that is the plan.