Heart Rate Training
This weekend I started training again with an old friend that I hadn’t seen in a long time. A few years ago, we were inseparable, but when I started traveling a lot for work our relationship fizzled, and when I moved to Denver, we lost touch completely. At the end of my race season, I decided it was time to rekindle the relationship, and we’ve now been together on two rides and one run. I’m speaking, of course, of my heart rate monitor.
A heart rate monitor can be a great training tool, particularly if you spend a lot of time training alone or if, like me, you are easily distracted by birds or shiny objects. I found out what my aerobic and lactate threshold heart rate zones were from a VO2 max test, so now all I need to do is keep my heart rate within the required zone (usually aerobic) for the duration of the workout. It’s a lot harder to slack off or push yourself too hard when you have a constant concrete reminder of your effort level on your wrist. After only two days training with the heart rate monitor again, I can definitely see the results. I did the same 9 mile run two days in a row, the first day without the heart rate monitor and the second day with it, and on the second day, I was 20 seconds per mile faster. Right from the start, I settled into a faster pace than I usually do, but it was still a pace I could have held for another 5 or 6 miles. The heart rate monitor kept me focused and prevented me from drifting.
The one downside of heart rate monitors is that they can be a bit balky about displaying your heart rate correctly, particularly the cheapest ones. I once bought a Timex heart rate monitor because it was the cheapest, and it was absolutely terrible. It would give me an accurate heart rate reading maybe 10% of the time, and the other 90%, it would give me a completely absurd number. Fortunately, my new Polar seems to be behaving well so far, and I’ve had good luck with Polar in the past. Anyway, I’m glad I decided to get back into heart rate training, and hopefully my heart rate monitor and I will be best friends forever.
