As I was running part of my training run at marathon pace today, I was thinking about heart rate. I know we have heart rate zones to train at, but how does that correlate with races? So I decided to look back and see how my heart rate has been in different marathons:
Boston 2008: avgHR 173, maxHR 185 (time: 3:36:08)
Cincy 2008: avgHR 169, maxHR 195 (time: 3:46:16)
Edmonton 2008: avgHR 165, maxHR 186 (time: 4:04:40)
Denver 2008: avgHR 172, maxHR 186 (time: 3:42:22)
Of those runs above, I ran the best (obviously) at Boston and Denver. The other two races I was running with other people, so I wasn’t necessarily running how I felt best. I think it’s really interesting how Cincy and Edmonton both showed a larger range between average and max than the other two.
Also interesting? Compare the average and max of Boston and Denver with what I did in training today: avgHR 174 maxHR 184. So hopefully what I did for 8 miles today, I can do for 26.2 in a month!
