Heart rate marathon

by Kreso
(Croatia)

Heart rate marathon : Should you run your marathon by heart rate ?

"Hello Marius
Can you say something about heart rate on the marathon race day. In your plan I see that you suggest that we ran marathon at 80% of HR max this is very fast pace (I train for 3:30 marathon and in the start of marathon phase for me is 4:45min/km tempo, so my time could be below 3:30).Is that correct? And if you can write about heart rate in 5k, 10k and Hm races?

best regards from Croatia"

Answer Hi Kreso, thanks for the question.

I actually recommend to stick to time only when racing the marathon. Which means, you aim to calculate it based on your half marathon time (which is again based on your previous 10k time that is again based on your 5k time) and race on pace.

The reason is this :

In races, you are heavily influenced by a number factors that will influence your heart rate differently than in training : hormones (adrenaline and others), cardiac drift as well as the effect tapering has on heart rate (allows you to actually run closer to your max HR on a given intensity than the previous weeks)

The only way you can really benefit from heart rate may be to monitor it in one marathon and if your condition and the race temperature/course is the same next time you may use this a referance.

Otherwise I suggest to stick with pace instead of heart rate in the marathon effort !

Kind regards,
Marius

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