adjusting heart rate zone

by ivi
(aus)

Hi Marius,

I am a few weeks away from the Melbourne marathon and all is going well so far with the training. I just completed the 1/2 marathon session in 85.15. I noticed my avg. heart rate was 185bpm for the race. Iowever, earlier this year I did a vo2max test and they found my anaerobic threshold to be 175bpm. so I'm a little confused with the difference I'm seeing between the race and test. anyhow, how should i interpret such a difference. I know you can't run a 1/2 marathon above your lactate threshold. My max heart rate is 196-198bpm btw. Anyhow, i will post my final result of the marathon when finished....hoping to hit under 3hrous...even if its 1 sec under thats all I'm after.

Cheers,

ivi

Answer: Hi Ivi and thanks for your question.

The main thing here (that I've talked about before in other questions) is that you cannot really use heart rate in race as a predictor of performance, due to adrenaline and cardiac shift during a race situation. It will almost always be misleadingly high. So it will not be accurate. You want to run by pace instead (that you correctly did)

The anaerobic threshold is about your 25k pace usually.

I wish you all the best for your upcoming marathon.

kind regards,
Marius