Runningmonkeys

Most mornings before I get out of bed, I try to focus my eyes on the second hand of my watch and count my pulse.  This is a difficult thing for me, not the counting, but the focusing of my eyes at that time of morning. 

The data that I get from this simple little ritual is well worth it.  I have found that on the whole, my resting heart rate is relatively stable.  I count for 30 seconds and then double it so I always end up with an even number, but it is usually 52 or 54 beats per minute.  I figure this sort of variation is probably normal, but I carefully take note of  any exceptions. 

This tiny piece of daily information is proving extremely valuable as I train and I will show you why. 

But first I must complain about the number of people who still insist on competing on the “lowness” of their resting heart rate.  This shows a complete misunderstanding of the true significance of the data.  It is like competing on the idling engine speed of a car.  It is practically meaningless.  Perhaps a V8 will idle at a lower RPM than a 600cc supercharged wonder racer, but the comparison tells us nothing about real world performance.  If anything it is the maximum RPM that tells us something but even this figure isn’t all that useful.

People love to misuse data like resting heart rates and the like when it suits them, but what does resting heart rate really mean?

•  The first thing resting heart rate can mean is our current level of fitness compared to a previous measurement.  It can be used for is as a guide to fitness gains over time.  Forget about comparing your heart rate with others, compare it with yourself.  Someone starting out from a sedentary lifestyle may well notice a significant, but gradual, decrease in resting heart rate as they increase their training over time.  This is possible because as the bodies cardiovascular system is developed it becomes more and more efficient.  For example the heart becomes stronger and capable of pumping more blood for each beat.  Over time, the resting requirements for blood are then satisfied with less and less beats per minute.  Someone early in their running life should be able to observe this improvement by carefully watching their resting heart rate.  Someone who is further down the track will not be able to see the improvement so dramatically.  Their resting heart rate will seem to be reducing over years rather than months and at some point will stop measurably changing at all.
• The second meaning of resting heart rate is as a measure of overall body health.  The speed that your heart beats when there is absolutely minimal load on your body can be seen as the amount of blood flow required by your body simply to survive.  This is roughly equated to the requirement of blood for maintenance of essential functions, and repair/rejuvenation of the body.  If we assume that maintenance of the body requires a fairly consistent amount of blood when you are lying in your cosy bed, then the primary variation would be due to repair/rejuvenation. 

This is the key to regular resting heart rate monitoring.  As soon as we see an abnormally high resting heart rate the alarm bells should go off.   What does this mean?  What should I do about this? 

Sometimes this will be obvious.  You may have simply woken from an alarming dream.  There is nothing much you can do about this (except going back to sleep and slaying the dragon or passing the exam you were facing in your dream). 

Other times are more complex.  You may be under some new or intensified stress.  This stress can either cause physiological problems or stop your body from recovering from these problems.  You may have added to much training or racing load for your body to recover.  You may be over-trained or under rested.  You may be sick with some illness unrelated to your running.  There are a lot of possible causes.

What do I do when I notice a higher than average resting heart rate?  I have a 4 point plan for when I experience a high waking heart rate:

1. Keep it in perspective - I don’t panic, and I don’t stress.  This would just make things worse for me.  Instead I accept that this is potentially useful information that I can choose to use to make me a better runner.
2. Think - What do I think is the likely cause of a higher than average heart rate?  Am I feeling otherwise healthy?  Have I done anything unusual recently which might have cause this?  Have I reduced my recovery time?  Was yesterday particularly hard?
3. Take a step back - Have a look at my overall health.  Am I always well hydrated?  Is my nutrition capable of supporting my lifestyle?  Do I get enough rest (thinking daily as well as weekly and yearly)?  Sometimes a variation in resting heart rate can show up as the culmination of a long term problem (”I can”t understand it, nothing has changed, I am always tired”…)
4. Take action - If the problem I have isolated can be fixed, I take the time to fix it.  If I am chronically dehydrated, I make this my primary training focus this week.  Every hour, I drink slightly more than I use.  If I am tired, I reduce my training and get more sleep.  If I am stressed, I take the time to get to know what stresses me and learn how to combat it, quickly.  If I simply haven’t recovered well enough from recent workouts or races, I consider skipping a workout.  Instead of putting more load on my struggling body, I go for a drill session, or a long stretch session.  I will still be developing myself as a runner, but I will be giving myself time to recover as well.

Note: Why am I writing this today?  As I wrote above, my average waking heart rate is either 52 or 54 beats per minute.  This morning, as I woke I measured 58 bpm.  I thought I was mistaken so I checked it and the second time I registered about the same.  The warning light went off:

1. I kept it in perspective - This is exactly the information I am looking for.  It may be telling  me something important that will help me in my journey to becoming a better runner
2. I thought- I decided that although I wasn’t racing 100%, yesterday’s cycling around Lake Kasumigaura was still fairly hard work.  I rode at high speed into a serious headwind for several long stretches and I definitely felt those periods later in the day.  Combine this with last week’s Pose training, which although low in distance, was high in calf pain.  Muscles don’t heal themselves.  My body has been working hard to get me to today when I don’t feel any calf soreness at all.  Combine this with the tail end of a cold and some serious spring hay fever and it is no surprise that my body is working harder than normal.  In my case it is obvious what is going on.
3. I took a step back - Looking at my overall health at the moment, I am quite satisfied.  My diet is good, my hydration level good (but soon to become insufficient as summer comes on if I don’t change).  My sleep and rest is good.  I will have to work on some extra cross training in the near future to keep my whole body in balance, but overall, I think things are going well
4. I took action - I have designed my week so that Monday is always my rest day.  This is because races and long runs are usually on a weekend so I will have earned a rest by Monday.  Today is Monday so my action was largely to follow my program and rest.  On top of this I removed a couple of other busy, active items from my to do list, to allow me the extra time to recover.  If it happened to be on a normal training day I would consider skipping or at least reducing a session to let me get in the rest that my body tells me that it needs.

This is how I use my waking heart rate as feedback leading to action.  It is the best guide that I have found to keep a track of how I am going.  How about you?  Do you use your waking heart rate or have you found another way to track your current condition?  Let us all know about it by leaving a comment below

Thanks

Tom

P.S This is Tuesday now (the day after the post was written) and this morning my waking heart rate was back down to 52 BPM.  This is right where I was hoping it would be and so I believe that yesterday’s rest helped my body get back on top of it.  Today, I completed a normal session without fear of knocking myself about, because I took notice of this vital statistic.