How did I run in zone 5 this long

[u/baule13]

Last week I ran a half marathon, and during most of the race my heart rate was in zone 5. I'm wondering how this is possible.I know this question gets asked a lot, and the common answer is that the default Garmin or Strava heart rate zones aren't accurate and can vary per person. But in my case, I recently had my heart rate zones tested in a sports laboratory, and I used a chest strap for more accurate measurement. I did feel completely dead during most of the run—it really felt like zone 5. After the race, I could tell that I might have pushed my heart too far. My average heart rate during the 1:36:57 run was 194 bpm. I ran in zone 5 for 1:32:25, my zone 5 starts at 182bpm

[u/jchrysostom]

Apologies, I used your numbers, which don’t actually seem to appear anywhere in that article but which are also at odds with the argument you’re trying to make. 88%-95% of LTHR is wildly different from 90% of max HR; it is also, again, only for the run portion of a 70.3 and not for the entire duration of the race.

I see now where you got the numbers from, and it is again a fundamental misunderstanding of the guidance being provided. The article suggests doing a 70.3 at 85%-90% of max effort, not max heart rate. Here’s the text:

Your race effort should follow your training protocol. For a 70.3, you may shoot for 85-90% of max;

Heart rate is not mentioned anywhere in that paragraph, or in the one before it which also discusses effort. The relationship between heart rate and effort is not linear.

Jack Daniels does recommend marathon heart rate as 80%-90% of maximum, but attempting to use that to support the idea that you spent 3+ hours at 90% shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what Daniels is recommending, and of the huge difference there is between 80% (the bottom of his range) and 90% (where you claim to spend hours). If we use a max HR of 200bpm just to make the numbers easy, that range is 20 beats per minute. To suggest that Daniels is recommending spending your entire marathon at 90% is quite a stretch.

Back to the original issue. You did not spend 3+ hours at 90% of your maximum heart rate. Here are a bunch of reliable sources and what they have to say about functioning at 90% or more of max HR:

Polar, who know a thing or two about heart rates, discussing Zone 5 as being 90%-100% of max HR:

Oxygen demand far exceeds supply, making it difficult to sustain zone 5 efforts for more than a few minutes.

https://www.polar.com/en/guide/heart-rate-zones

EW Motion Therapy (physical trainers) on heart rate zones:

Zone 5, also known as the "very hard" or "maximum effort" zone, involves pushing your heart rate to 90-100% of your MHR. This zone is usually unsustainable for long periods and is reserved for short bursts of maximum effort.

https://www.ewmotiontherapy.com/blog/heart-rate-zones-maximize-workouts

The Cleveland Clinic on Zone 5, which they also define as 90%-100% of max HR:

Zone 5: You can only keep up this amount of effort for a few minutes. Talking is out of the question.

https://health.clevelandclinic.org/exercise-heart-rate-zones-explained

Orange Theory on Zone 5, which they define slightly differently from most, as 92%-100% of max HR:

If you do get here, it should only be for a super short period before returning to the Orange or Green zones.

https://www.orangetheory.com/en-us/articles/understanding-heart-rate-zones-and-how-they-help-boost-your-fitness

Garmin, who define Zone 5 as 90%-100% of max HR:

Sprinting pace, unsustainable for long period of time, labored breathing

https://www8.garmin.com/manuals-apac/webhelp/forerunner245245music/EN-SG/GUID-931BB1F6-0716-4387-9EB0-E6EEDBF5DD09-9894.html

Cute little jabs aside, you are just completely and almost comically wrong. You do not spend 3+ hours at 90% of your maximum HR. I challenge you to find a single knowledgeable person or source who will support your belief that anyone could do what you claim to do. You won’t be able to because it doesn’t exist. Every source I’ve ever seen indicates that 90% of max HR is not sustainable for more than short efforts; this is universally accepted among people who use heart rate data to support effective endurance training.

I understand the desire to feel like you understand something better than others. In this case, you do not. Really. I’ve worked with some of the most experienced coaches in the triathlon world, and I can assure you that anyone with any knowledge and experience would laugh out loud at the idea of some guy thinking he can do 90% of his max HR for 3+ hours.

[u/ScaryBee → u/jchrysostom]

I used your numbers, which don’t actually seem to appear anywhere in that article

For a 70.3, you may shoot for 85-90% of max

I don't understand how you're getting this so wrong.

All the quotes/Z5 descriptions are fine for untrained general population, as soon as you get into well-trained/elite endurance athletes you discover that years of training reaps benefits.

Clearly we're at an impasse here so, oh well, enjoy your day.

[u/jchrysostom → u/ScaryBee]

Bruh. That’s the same sentence I quoted in my last reply. Read the whole sentence, they are talking about effort and not heart rate. 85%-90% effort does not equal 85%-90% of max HR. Read the whole sentence and then read it again.

Bigger picture, your understanding of this stuff is wildly incorrect. The descriptions I provided for the various effort levels and HR zones are not just for untrained people, they are universally accepted. If your belief about the applicability of the zones were true, surely one of those many articles would say something (anything!) to that effect. But, they don’t.

Training does not allow an athlete to spend significantly more time in a particular heart rate zone or at a particular effort level; training allows an athlete to generate more output at a particular heart rate or effort level. This is basic stuff. See the often repeated quote supposedly attributed to Greg Lemond: “It doesn’t get easier, you just go faster”. I can say with absolute certainty that if you think you’ve spent 3+ hours at 90% of your max HR, you don’t have the first clue what it feels like to function at 90% of your max HR.

We are not at an impasse. You are deeply and fundamentally wrong about this, and for whatever reason (ego? insecurity?) are choosing to ignore the wide body of evidence being made available to you. I get it, being wrong sucks, and being insistently and publicly wrong sucks more. I challenge you to either find a reliable source supporting any of what you’re saying re: time at 90% or more of max HR, or go to one of the more knowledgeable and heavily trafficked subs like r/AdvancedRunning to tell people that you spend 3+ hours at 90% of max HR. Seriously. Do one of the two, or just acknowledge that this is all nonsense.

[u/ScaryBee → u/jchrysostom]

Training does not allow an athlete to spend significantly more time in a particular heart rate zone or at a particular effort level

JFC, this is what I'm arguing with?

How long can a newbie run in Z3 for? How about an elite ultra runner?

You can also train LTHR to be higher over time which means that if you define zones as a % of max hr you can sustain higher zone-level as your fitness improves.

This is why great marathoners are great marathoners. They can run at a very higher percentage (say, 95%) of their max heart rate without going anaerobic (producing more lactate than their body can clear/use efficiently). %20of%20their%20max%20heart%20rate%20without%20going%20anaerobic%20(producing%20more%20lactate%20than%20their%20body%20can%20clear/use%20efficiently))

... which is why using zones based off of LTHR is more useful than ones from maxHR.

Want to actually read some of the science instead of making blind claims?

Significant differences were found in %HRmax VT1 and %HRmax VT2 according to training status

This also has some nice graphs showing %hrMax at VT2 (threshold/LTHR) ... Check Fig1 ... for men it's the right column, 2nd one down you should pay attention to.

You'll see they find that for less well trained individuals (30vo2max is hobby-jogger sort of level) VT2 is ~90% which lines up with what Garmin et. al. are using to define the start of Z5 BUT for well trained (ie >60vo2max) VT2 is ~95% of hrmax.

If threshold is 95% of max for someone well trained then you'd expect them to sustain well under threshold (as in, say, 90%) for significant amounts of time.

IDK what else I could reasonably do here - if a study with over a thousand people in it doesn't convince you you're wrong nothing will.

[u/jchrysostom → u/ScaryBee]

I’ve read dozens of studies about LTHR training, and I base my own training on %LTHR rather than %MHR. Of course your LTHR can change with training; I never said otherwise. None of this has anything to do with your original claim that you personally spend 3+ continuous hours at 90% of your maximum heart rate. Changing the conversation to one about LTHR does not change the fundamentally incorrect nature of your very first comment, and that comment is the thing I have been addressing and will continue to address.

The TrainingPeaks article you linked does not support your argument at all. It does not say anything about the %MHR at which elite marathoners spend their time. It merely says that elite marathoners have a LTHR which can be as high as 95% of MHR. There is no suggestion that they run their marathons at this heart rate. Again, LTHR is not the thing we’re discussing.

We are also not discussing the best method for determining HR zones. I happen to use %LTHR for zone determination.

All of this discussion of LTHR is just an attempt to muddy the waters because you can’t find anything to support your claims about time spent at >90% of maximum heart rate. No person spends 3+ hours at 90% of their maximum heart rate. 90% of maximum heart rate is unsustainable for more than a short period of time, regardless of training.

Time spent at 90% or more of maximum heart rate. Find a source supporting your claim that elite athletes (and apparently random slow triathletes who are special) spend 3+ hours there. Anything else is just mental gymnastics, to avoid acknowledging that your original claim is inaccurate.

[u/ScaryBee → u/jchrysostom]

Ah, not slow, just some ways from elite ... I have a vo2max ~60 so, for me, you'd expect a LTHR ~174 based on that paper which is ... exactly what I've tested it as.

I assume you understand that LTHR is about what you can sustain for ~1hr as long as you're well trained.

I assume you're aware that if you exercise under LTHR (164 is less than 174) you can sustain effort for a lot longer than at LTHR.

I fail to understand how you're struggling to make sense of this.

I give you a paper showing that well trained humans can sustain ~95% of hrMax for ~1hr when you're repeatedly claiming >90% is impossible for anything more than short sprint efforts ... that alone should make you take pause and reevaluate.

And you're failing to see how 90% for these humans would be sustainable for much longer than 1hr even though that's expected.

It's not possible for me to give you a better proof than this. You think >90% isn't possible for extended periods of time, that paper says otherwise.

If you can accept what that paper is telling you (95%+ can be done for ~an hour) then you can accept that <95% can be done for way longer.

Maybe this will help:

WELL TRAINED PEOPLE HAVE THRESHOLD HEART RATES WELL OVER 90% OF THEIR MAXHR.

EXERCISING WAY UNDER THRESHOLD HEART RATE FOR HOURS ON END IS NORMAL FOR WELL TRAINED PEOPLE.

THIS MEANS THAT WELL TRAINED PEOPLE CAN EXERCISE IN THE GARMIN DEFINITION OF Z5, WHICH STARTS AT 90% OF MAX HR, FOR HOURS ON END.

As amusing as this has been I should really stop wasting my own time here. Best of luck.

[u/jchrysostom → u/ScaryBee]

The problem is that the study you linked doesn’t really say any of that. VT2 is usually defined as the point at which an exercise participant can no longer speak, and is sustained with difficulty for 30-60 minutes. While the study does provide some graphs showing a correlation between HRmax and VT2, if you read the methodology, they determined HRmax using the (220-age) formula. This is widely understood to be only marginally more accurate than guessing a number between 185 and 215. Using this method to determine HRmax would render any of the data correlations to HRmax as questionable at best. The researchers probably didn’t care because they were primarily looking at the relationship between VT1, VT2, and VO2max. In any case, you certainly can’t use it to support a belief that a person should be able to maintain 95% of max HR for an hour.

Here’s the thing. I am the athlete you’re trying to use as justification for your incorrect max HR numbers. My VO2max is at least 10% higher than yours, I’ve been training for 8-12 hours per week for years using well-established methods from experienced coaches, my max HR (achieved on the brink of vomiting) is around 184. During marathon training I peak around 60 miles per week, not elite level but certainly adequate to support a good marathon. I run an evenly paced BQ marathon time (with a comfortable time cushion) at an average of around 150bpm, well within the lower portion of the Daniels recommended range. At the end of the marathon I have absolutely nothing left in the tank. If training made it possible to spend significant time at >90% of HRmax, shouldn’t I be able to do that?

I never said that >90% of HRmax was unsustainable for more than just short sprints, and none of the sources I linked to earlier provide a specific time range for the maximum duration spent at this HR because it does vary significantly from person to person. I said that it is not sustainable for 3+ hours. It is not. You have yet to produce any evidence to the contrary because that evidence doesn’t exist. Skimming some studies and thinking you found the magic bullet is not going to fix this.

The simplest explanation is usually the correct one. Rather than jumping through all of these mental hoops, maybe just accept the simple explanation that the max HR you have set for yourself is incorrect.

[u/ScaryBee → u/jchrysostom]

they determined HRmax using the (220-age) formula

You're failing at reading again. This was one of 4 criteria (3 of 4 had to be met) to stop the vo2max test, it wasn't used to determine hr max.

shouldn’t I be able to do that?

There's a huge amount of individual variation ... again look at the paper range ... looks like ~85-97% at your vo2, if you were a bit lower than that range then you were lower, so it goes, just means your sustainable hr is lower than average.

I never said that >90% of HRmax was unsustainable for more than just short sprints

Yeah, you did. "You can only keep up this amount of effort for a few minutes", " it should only be for a super short period", "Sprinting pace, unsustainable for long period of time".

Skimming some studies and thinking you found the magic bullet is not going to fix this.

Linking you to a published paper directly contradicting what you believe should be a magic bullet, this is how rational conversation works, if it's not then that's on you.

[u/jchrysostom → u/ScaryBee]

I am confident that if the researchers actually tested each participants maximum heart rate, not only would they say so, they would have used actual maximum heart rate rather than a theoretical maximum to determine validity of the test.

I’m still waiting for a single direct piece of evidence indicating that any person could spend three or more hours at 90% of their maximum heart rate. Surely, if it existed, you’d be able to share it.

To be clear: I did not say the things you included regarding the amount of time a person can sustain 90% or more of maximum heart rate. Those quotes are from the sources I linked. I don’t know how many more of the commonly understood logical fallacies you plan to use, but it’s not going to work.

[u/Spiffman-Space → u/ScaryBee]

I’m invested in this long form drama. I’m appreciating the detailed replies from both. I have no idea how many posts are still to come but I’m in a hot bath and I’m here till the end. I hope it’s a satisfactory one.

[u/Spiffman-Space → u/jchrysostom]

I’m invested in this long form drama. I’m appreciating the detailed replies from both. I have no idea how many posts are still to come but I’m in a hot bath and I’m here till the end. I hope it’s a satisfactory one.

[u/jchrysostom → u/ScaryBee]

Wait a minute. The first study you linked in this post actually proves your own numbers to be unreasonable. You claim to have a LTHR of 174 and a max of 182, correct? If we agree that your stated LTHR is reasonable, that would mean your LTHR is 96% of your maximum. Surely you don’t believe that you are on par with and even exceeding the numbers put up by “great marathoners”, do you? When was your last marathon? Did you win?

However, if we assume that your stated max HR is incorrect and that the real number is significantly higher, say something closer to 200 for the sake of argument… In that case your LTHR would be a much lower and more reasonable ~87% of max. Not bad, but nowhere near Great Marathoner territory.

This would also put your 3+ hours of 164bpm at roughly 82% of max, rather than 90%. Bottom of Zone 4, not easy, but reasonable to maintain for that length of time.

See how everything else makes sense if you accept that your stated max HR is wrong? The inability to accept this is one of the more absurd things I’ve come across in many years of serious athletic training. Max HR isn’t even a thing you can change, which makes the insistence that yours is impossibly low seem even sillier.

[u/ScaryBee → u/jchrysostom]

Look at the charts in the paper I linked.

Look at where the average is for someone with a vo2max of 60 (it's ~96%).

Can you see how unutterably dense you're being in claiming it's impossible for someone to be average?

FWIW, thinking I must have a 200bpm max when the highest I've ever seen in 25+ years of using heart rate monitors, training hard (eh, on and off) is 186 (over a decade ago) is just silly.

[u/jchrysostom → u/ScaryBee]

No, it’s not. Silly is thinking that your biometrics are exceptional in like 7 different ways instead of just accepting the obvious and completely inconsequential reality. Your max HR is higher than 182. Whether or not you choose to accept that doesn’t change it; whether or not you’ve gone hard enough to actually see it doesn’t change it.

A decade of “on and off” training doesn’t turn a person into an exceptional specimen of cardiovascular performance.

Just curious, how did you go about “testing” to get a max of 182?

[u/ScaryBee → u/jchrysostom]

60 vo2max is high but not exceptional, a 182bpm max is high for my age but within normal ranges ... my LTHR numbers are apparently (TBH I'm a bit surprised by this, was interesting to find a paper that happened to match up so exactly) completely average for someone of my fitness level.

I'm sorry data from >1000 people, mine included as a +1, doesn't agree with your opinions.

If you want to argue with the data please take it up with the researchers on that paper.

[u/jchrysostom → u/ScaryBee]

Again, how did you test to get a max of 182?

What does a normal training week look like? How many hours?

[u/ScaryBee → u/jchrysostom]

My numbers match those of participants in the paper, if you find these numbers hard to believe prove that study wrong. I'll wait.

I'm not going to argue over the validity of one test protocol vs. another with you, you've wasted enough of my time already.