I’ve had a few heart rate monitors over the years; unfortunately they’ve tended to die on me after a year or so of use. I just got a new one from Nashbar for pretty cheap, so I’m using it to help in my training again.

What is a heart rate monitor? Simply, it’s a way to keep fairly accurate track of how fast your heart is beating, particularly when exercising. What’s so important about this? Well, your heart rate is an indicator of how hard you are working out. For instance, using one of the commonly accepted formulas for determining maximum heart rate (220 minus age), the highest number on my monitor is supposed to be 178. So if I’m training and my rate is in the 150s, I know I have a ways to go; if I’m racing and my number is in the 160s, I know I’m exerting myself reasonably over a long distance, but if I’m in a sprint toward the end, I have some upside.

When I ran the SAM’s 5K this past week, I used the monitor to help me pace myself. I was determined to keep my heart rate between 155 and 165 for the majority of the run. If I headed into the 160s I’d back off a little, but if I was just over 150 I knew I had some more work to do. Then, when I headed into the last turn, I wouldn’t let my monitor dip under 170, and at the very end I was right at 180, a couple of beats above “maximum”. Using the monitor helped me prevent from going at too hard of a pace early on, then made sure I gave it the best effort I could at the end of the run.

I’m going to keep working on heart rate monitor training and using it during events; we’ll see how it works out as time goes on.

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