Your Heart Rate Zone Is Wrong (Fix It in 10 Minutes)

[00:00:00] You ran nine minutes yesterday and felt great. Today, you’re running the exact same pace and you’re dying. Same nine minute miles, completely different effort. Your watch shows the answer. Your heart rate is 15 b higher today, but you ignored it because you focused on pace. Here’s the problem, pace lies, heart rate tracks what’s actually happening in your body.

[00:00:20] After it’s being pushed, let me show you how to use heart rate training. You stop guessing whether you’re going too hard or too easy. I’ll be going over why most runners get heart rate training wrong and what actually works. How to find your easy heart rate zone. No lab tests required the talk test trick that confirms you’re in the right zone, why you should ignore heart rate on hard days, and what to use instead.

[00:00:42] And a free start running based on heart rate training plan. In the end, you’ll have a concrete plan to stop guessing on your easy rounds and actually run easy. Oh, if pace lies, who should you trust to translate the truth from your watch? Well, you should trust me. I’m Daren D, late coach, sub three hour math honor, and I’ve trained by heart rate.

[00:00:59] 14 years going on 15 years. And this isn’t theory from a textbook. It’s what actually works from testing it on myself for thousands, tens of thousands of kilometers, possibly more, and coaching thousands of self-coach runners and the science I’ve made every mistake with heart rate training and heart rate training can get really messy.

[00:01:19] There’s multiple zones and all this stuff and really complex. We are gonna simplify that. Today to make it super easy for you and make it so that you don’t make any of the mistakes that I did and get right into your running so that you can run faster, farther, et cetera. So why does the same pace feel easy one day and brutal the next day?

[00:01:38] Here is the mental model. Think of pace like a speedometer and heart rate, like an. Temperature gauge. I love this analogy in cars. So you’re driving along your speedometer, tells you how fast you’re going. Your temperature gauge tells you if your engine is overheating. The engine temperature pace tells you what you’re doing.

[00:01:57] So that speed again and heart rate tells you how hard your body is working to do it. It’s the. Of how hard you’re working, so that’s what your body decides. It’s like, oh, this is, this is tough. Here’s what most runners do wrong. They run the same pace every day, say nine minute miles, or what would that be?

[00:02:15] Uh, six and a half minutes per kilometer, or six minutes per kilometer. It feels easy Monday. Feels hard Thursday, they blame themselves. Why am I so weak today? I need to push through it. Blah, blah, blah. Here’s what actually happened on Monday. You were well rested. You had 140 beats per minute, which is probably about zone one, zone two, and you were at nine minutes per mile, which is again, six, six minutes per kilometer.

[00:02:37] And Thursday you were tired from all the life stuff. You got a young kid and you got work and you didn’t sleep that much and all these other things and some caffeine you threw in there two hours before the run. 160 BPMs at the same exact pace at that nine minute mile or six minutes per kilometer pace, same pace, completely different effort.

[00:02:56] Your body doesn’t care about the pace. It cares about the work that’s being done. Why heart rate training works Because your heart rate adjusts for everything paces can’t. How much sleep you got, how stressed you are if you’re getting sick, temperature and humidity. How recovered you are from yesterday’s run.

[00:03:10] Heat and cardiovascular or heart rate drifts during long runs. So if you’ve been running for a while, as it gets hotter outside, as you start doing more work, your heart rate at the same exact effort will creep up. It’s called cardiovascular drift or, uh, cardiac drift in heat or longer runs. That cardiovascular drift is just a fancy way of saying that your body is working harder and doing the same thing Again, the actionable step for you to do this right now on your next easy run, ignore pace completely.

[00:03:39] Just keep your heart rate in a comfortable range and see what pace happens. You’d be surprised how slow you need to go. And if you wanna validate it, validate it by effort, how hard does it actually feel? So you got your heart rate and that’s the output, and then you got the feeling, which is the input. So if easy really means easy, what’s the simple plan that makes.

[00:03:57] All of this stick. Well, you gotta get my run farther and longer with very, very little effort. Very easy training plan. It is again, free and it is 30 days. It gets you started with all types of tools and tactics and scheduling and programming. You’re like, okay, this is my easy day here. This is gonna be my interval day here.

[00:04:18] But I spread it out that you’re really building up the base and it is all percentage heart rate based or zone based. You figure out your zones or you figure out where your percent of max heart rate is, and I got you covered. Get that at the QR code here or link down below in the episode description or show notes if you’re listening and wanna run or work out or whatever, and you will get subscribed to my for free and automatically to my newsletter.

[00:04:43] Alright, back to it. If effort is a target, how do you set the dials without a lab? So how to actually use it. Think of it like using a thermostat instead of guessing if it’s hot or cold. You wouldn’t set your thermostat by sticking your hand out the window and going, Hmm, putting your finger up into the wind.

[00:04:57] What’s it not? We don’t need to do that. You look at the actual temperature outside, you get your weather app, you’d cross reference it against multiple apps. Heart raise your body thermostats. So step one, find your easy. Heart rate range. You don’t need a lab test. You don’t need complicated formulas. Go for 10 minutes at an easy pace where you can talk in full sentences without gasping.

[00:05:17] So this is actually easier than what people call zone two. You wanna go full on B’Av, blah blah, B’Av, B’Av, B’Av, B’Av, B’Av, B’Av, B’Av, B’Av. That’s normal conversation. You have to take a breath when you talk. Zone two, running, as I’ve talked about in other episodes, zone two running is you, you.

[00:05:35] Like, and that’s, that’s, that’s fine with conversational zone two pace, you can take in less oxygen because you’re running at a high heart rate. We want to be like super easy zone one. So look at your average heart rate for that 10 minute part of the run or that 10 minute run. That’s your easy range as a population guide.

[00:05:51] So if you want. Pure numbers. Scientific easy usually sits around 64 to 76% of your max heart rate, or 40 to 59% of your heart rate reserve. That’s really complicated. You need to know that stuff, but your number is what matters. So the actual beats per minute, the talk test works better than any formula anyway.

[00:06:09] So how much talking can you do? Zone one, if you could do mostly a lot of talking or decent round talking, it’s probably zone two, not that much. Talking zone three, a couple words, zone four, and you don’t even feel like talking. So you can actually, it’s very, very, very accurate. Way. It sounds like a silly system, but it’s very accurate.

[00:06:24] Step two, use the talk test to confirm it. As I said, you chat freely, you’re in the easy range. Are you breathing hard? Your heart rate’s too high. You’re in the uh, slow down range. Do you feel like you want to die? Like you’re probably way too high? Do you feel like you are walking backwards? Your heart rate might be too low or you need to trust the process.

[00:06:43] Here’s the science. Multiple studies show that the last comfortable talking point lines up with your first ventilator threshold. VT one, the physiological ceiling of easy effort. If you can talk in full sentences, you’re likely under VT one. That’s the top of easy. That’s the start of easy. So like I said, zone two, as I’m sure you heard about a bunch that is.

[00:07:03] Probably right at VT one. This is like super sciencey, but we’re gonna stop being sciencey. Heart rate doesn’t lie. Your ego does. Step three of how to do this stuff run easy days by heart rate, not pace. So on easy days, set in upper limit. Say your easy rate is 145 when your watch hits 150. These slow down.

[00:07:20] I don’t care if you’re running nine minute pace or 11 minutes per mile, which would be 6, 7, 7 and a half minutes per kilometer. Keep your heart rate under 150 BPMs closer to 145 for most people. Some people might need to be lower, some people higher, depending on how old you are. A lot of differences. This is just an example.

[00:07:37] And then we got step four. Ignore heart rate on hard days. Yes, ignore it. So intervals, even some tempo runs. I’m not gonna say all tempo runs some tempo runs and races. Yes. Heart rate lags behind effort. If you have a long tempo run. I actually do like heart rate ’cause it stops you from going too fast. A lot of people go way too fast on tempo, runs and zap themself intervals, especially when you’re doing two, three minute intervals, one minute interval.

[00:08:01] Those are terrible with heart rate. ’cause your heart rate kind of comes in at the end of the interval or 20 seconds after you’re done. That’s how heart rate works On hard days, I like to do pace or effort or if you have a power meter, you wanna be slick and you understand power, or you can do power. I like power the best, but this is simplified.

[00:08:18] We’re making it easy and save heart rate for easy days or recovery. If you’re doing a hard set and you want to get it below your zone one. So zone zero, as some people say before zone one starts, zone one running of a five zone heart rate system. I would then use my heart rate. It’s like, okay, my heart rate dropped below 1 25.

[00:08:36] I can now start the next interval. So the gear, you’ll need to do this, you’ll need a proper heart rate strap. So the one that goes either around your chest or on your arm, wrist based heart rate. So the optical, it’s called optical on your watch. Uh, they’re not great for accurate. Heart rate training. You do have optical on the ARM-based ones, but uh, it’s actually super accurate ’cause it has more blood flow.

[00:08:58] Again, not gonna go into the weeds too much, but uh, just need to understand this isn’t accurate because of the fact that it sits really close to your wrist, which is low blood supply. So that’s one of the biggest reasons, and it gets more inaccurate depending on your skin color. A lot of other factors how clean the surface is.

[00:09:15] If you haven’t like taken the watch off and cleaned your skin of oil. Another thing is. Once you start running faster than pretty much like my zone two, I found that it just bounces around too much. Any really fast running. It either doesn’t go up high enough or it goes too high, it shoots up and it’s just, it’s 10, 20, 30 BPS off or lower or high.

[00:09:33] The chest strap is super accurate again, or the Armand if you want position. I think that most runners should buy it. They are quite cheap. Copo, uh, is a pretty decent brand If you don’t have that money and I think it’s like 50 US for a really decent arm strap, the chest heart rate monitors have gone down.

[00:09:50] You can get one for like a low end, one 40, $50, I’d say to get a decent one. The last you two, three years, if you take care of it, you don’t sweat it too much. You wash it off after every run. And yeah, they match basically ECG gold standard accuracy. So that’s like medical grade stuff and. That’s why I like it.

[00:10:07] It’s just easy, you know, it’s mostly accurate. It’s not always accurate. It’s not 99.9% accurate. I’d say it’s like 90% accurate and that’s why you need to go heart rate and you need to also go effort, and you also need to do a proper speaking test where you count down numbers, which I will show you how to do that in a future video.

[00:10:25] Not trying to complicate this too much. So set a heart rate alert on your watch. This is the next action step. Pick your number, whatever your easy range is, you can do the online calculator, vdot, et cetera, generic stuff. You can do the mofi tone test, all these other things you can do, and you set it and you wanna set the upper limit.

[00:10:41] And when it beeps, slow down. And when it’s not beeping, you can keep running. No excuses. You could walk when it beeps, just walk for 10, 20 seconds and then start running again. You’ll learn really how to train the discipline to slow down. Now your ego. So once you switch to heart rate, what’s most likely to trip you up?

[00:10:56] Mistake one. Panicking about high heart rate on. Easy runs. You thought you were running easy, but your heart rate says 1 65. You freak out. You slow down and walk or you stop it. It’s fine. You don’t have to do that. You just learn something new. You’ve been running too hard on easy days. This is good information.

[00:11:11] Just slow down a little bit. You don’t need to panic. You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s not bad runner. Mistake two. Obsessing over hitting the exact. Same number every day. You read that your easy heart rate should be 141 day, it’s 145, you panic, heart rate varies. Five to 10 beats a day is absolutely normal, and fatigue stress, several beats of additional rise due to cardiovascular drift.

[00:11:33] Also, the technology just decides not to work sometimes, and especially if it’s not connected, right. Or if it’s really dry, outside and cold and it’s on. If I got a couple layers on, the monitor won’t wor work, right? I sometimes have to take it off my skin and put it back on, especially with the chest strap.

[00:11:49] But the armband seems to be much more accurate over time. Pick and choose. Armband or chest strap. I’d say do not, do not trust the watch. Mistake three. Using heart rate four, everything. Again, heart rate is perfect for easy runs. It is terrible for speed work. As I said before, we need to not do that, so I’m just.

[00:12:06] Pushing that point in mistake four, expecting instant heart rate training results, you start training by heart rate week one, you’re running 10 thirties. That’s seven minutes per kilometer to keep your heart rate down, you feel slow, stupid. Trust the process Over six to eight weeks of consistent low intensity volume.

[00:12:23] Many runners see faster pace at the same heart rate. Your aerobic engine is adapting. You’re building the foundation. The real mistake thinking heart rate training is complicated. It’s not run easy days easy enough to talk, check your heart rate to confirm you’re not lying to yourself. That’s it. Alright.

[00:12:37] Again, if you wanna learn how I structure my training, including how I use heart rate for running farther and longer, I call it base building. It’s a free training plan. 30 days you can get. The QR code here or below in the show notes or the episode description, and you’ll also get automagically signed up for my newsletter where I go deep on topics like heart rate and VO two max and tempo and all these really confusing things and a lot of life lessons around running and mental fitness.

[00:13:04] ’cause you gotta get that brain right, so you don’t gotta worry about that. It lands in your email inbox. It’s five minutes or less to read. Just more value again for free. And I keep talking about base. Everyone talks about base training and running farther and longer. Heart rate simplified is a great way to understand where your training is and what you need to do.

[00:13:22] But base training and running farther and longer is really how you apply the heart rate training so that you can again, run farther and longer. ’cause that’s what we all want to do, or faster with less effort. That’s what we all wanna do. There’s not a lot of people out there that don’t go, Hey. I just finished that race and this time how about I finish race five minutes faster or you know, 25 seconds faster or whatever.

[00:13:41] So I got a whole episode where I go deep dive on base training and understanding energy systems, et cetera. Go get it. The video down below. If you’re on YouTube or if you’re listening, you wanna listen to the episode or you’re on Spotify, go hit up the show notes for that. Thanks for rocking with me.

[00:13:55] Hopefully everything’s more simplified. Peace.