Training run HR?

[tattiefritter]

I'm very similar to Yellow, high working heart rates. I can still breathe comfortably through my nose at 160bpm (in fact I was breathing comfortably through my nose at 171bpm a couple of weeks ago for some reason though that is rare). A friend of mine only hits 160bpm when she is working extremely hard and is about to see stars. In our riding group of 14 at the weekend we had a comparison of heart rates and there was a large range.

I judge how hard I am working by my breathing, if I'm breathing through my nose then I am very comfortable, when I start breathing through my mouth then I am starting to work harder. The switch from all nose to a mix of mouth and nose breathing happens around 163bpm - 165bpm fairly consistently no matter what I'm doing. When I was training for my half marathon I aimed to run at a pace where I was always breathing through my nose, if I was having to start breathing through my mouth a lot (hills excepted) then I was going too fast.

I can reach much higher heart rates cycling than running at the minute. On an MTB ride with technical/steep climbs I can regularly hit 187 if I'm pushing it, I think the highest I've managed to hit running so far is 181. I think that is due to the fact that I'm more conditioned to cycling and not having to support my own body weight. I'm intending on doing some hilly trail running however, it'll be interesting to see what happens then.

[Grog]

I can reach much higher heart rates cycling than running at the minute. On an MTB ride with technical/steep climbs I can regularly hit 187 if I'm pushing it, I think the highest I've managed to hit running so far is 181. I think that is due to the fact that I'm more conditioned to cycling and not having to support my own body weight. I'm intending on doing some hilly trail running however, it'll be interesting to see what happens then.

Your story totally reads like mine. I had that same observation about not cranking up my HR as much when running compared to cycling. Then I started running much more seriously last fall and especially doing hill reps. I can now consistently bring my HR to 195 and I've even hit 200 once or twice going up a hill at race pace. I thought it was pretty cool (one of my running partners thought it was pretty scary!!!). And it really pays off in hilly races.