Using Heart Rate to Set a Tempo for your 5K

Most discoveries are made by accident or serendipity. Is this really left to chance? I don't think so. When you search for something, you'll find it.

I would like to share my exercise experience so that other aspiring runners can benefit from my expertise as a doctor, chemistry & human biology major, and an athlete. If we use 25 years old as our prime, I'm a bit past that...but my knowledge and running results will prove to be useful evidence that our bodies don't wear out as we get older, we just keep re-hashing bad habits that cause our health to decline.

Heart rate training has been the most useful tool to gauge my body's ability to improve cardiovascularly...and avoid injury. What's that worth?! -Quite a bit, when a person realizes that exercise injuries are what curb out desires to stay fit.

By using your heart rate to gauge your exercise, your biochemistry can work WITH your body rather than AGAINST it. Applying these principles can and will accelerate your 5K times as shown by my personal results in this post. I live to serve as an example to others.

As a general rule, if you exercise by keeping your heart at a lower rate, you will soon be able to progress and speed up without causing your body to exert any more energy than needed.

For example, say you run a particular route near your house because it's your favorite. Keep track of your time. Purchase a heart rate monitor off of ebay. I got mine from EDiscount Bike on Ebay for around $40. This is a great deal. The brand is Sports Instruments, and mine was called the ECG model. It's perfect, and looks good compared to the expensive name brand ones that look like something from Star Trek.

Start off slowly. Most people's tendency is to run hard and leave themselves ragged at the end. Stop right now, the NO PAIN NO GAIN days are over, we're going to start exercising sensibly here...

Keep your heart rate at about 135-145. In this HR zone your body will have the ability to burn more fat rather than sugar for energy. What's the difference? you get about 9 times as much energy burning fat for energy in this HR zone that you do from sugar in a higher HR zone. I won't go into the biochemistry here...it's very simple math though (1 glucose=36 units of energy when burning fat compared to 1 glucose=4 units of energy burning sugar) The difference is the presence of oxygen to your muscles, so keep that heart rate lower.

At first this method will drive you nuts because you may have to walk certain portions of your run or slow down so much that you feel like "the tortoise". Keep at it, pretty soon you'l be able to complete the entire run without stopping. Hills and other terrain will eventually be a breeze too. Remember to keep track of your time, yet keep the heart rate the same. Take a quick look at my times below to see how it works...

for the chemistry and biology dorks out there...and interested athletes, doctors, etc, the chemistry is simple...When your heart rate is much above 150 you go into a CATABOLIC reaction, meaning that your body's tissues are not able to repair as quick as they are tearing down. Proteins are being eaten out of muscle, muscle fibers will begin to tear before long, and oxygen certainly isn't being used very well or circulated to your tissues...this is called Anaerobic activity and is burning sugar without the presence of oxygen. This is why sprinters never become distance runners, they can't handle it. They also aren't treating their heart in a friendly manner. This type of metabolism is detrimental to your health for long periods of time, yet is a much needed part of the body's stress response and Adrenal "Flight or Fight" Response.

The alternative is working-out and exercising in an Aerobic state (or as close to it as possible). This means that your body is still able to exercise, yet meanwhile make oxygen available to muscles, cells, tissues, etc. Your body likes oxygen, don't you? In the presence of oxygen, you can burn sugar from fat and make 36 ATP for each glucose you burn, while you only get 4ATP when burning glucose without oxygen.

Still not convinced?!

When I'm finishing my last 400 yards of a 5K or 10K, I'm sprinting. Nobody else I've run against has passed me at the finish. I'm not anywhere near to winning the races I run, but nobody has the energy left to beat me at the end because their gas tank is on empty.

If you grasp these principles, you'll do great. I wish someone had told me this when I played soccer in high school and college, it would have made a real difference.

Reviewing the times and date below, you can see that a break from conditioning tends to place me back where I started, yet it takes a short amount of time to get back to my previous exercise goals once I would begin exercising again and using the monitor. Notice that on 10-23-07 my 5K time was 32.01 and just 2 weeks later it was 26.45. That's a 5 minute 16 second difference, in just 2 weeks. AT the SAME Heart Rate! "Hello, McFly."

Be Well. Get Adjusted. Seek Chiropractic.

Running Times:

Heart Rate Zone- 145-155 Beats Per Minute

Note:(time in BOLD are race times, other 5K times are conditioning runs using the Heart Rate Monitor) All of the runs are done at a heart rate of 145-155. All race-day runs are not monitored, yet you can clearly see that they improve.

04-20-06 5K 33.33
04-23-06 5K 31.28
04-26-06 5K 30.19
05-01-06 5K 29.14
05-03-06 5K 28.23
05-04-06 5K 28.51
05-06-06 10K 43.55 Rocky Coast 10K-Boothbay, Maine
05-10-06 5K 27.58
05-12-06 5K 27.27

01-09-07 5K 32.56
01-12-07 5K 28.31

09-30-07 5K 21.31 Second Empire 5K Race
10-21-07 5K 21.07 St Augustine's 5K Race
10-23-07 5K 32.01
10-25-07 5K 28.59
10-27-07 5K Hooker Memorial 5K Race
10-28-07 5K 19.47 CASA 5K Race
11-06-07 5K 27.47
11-07-07 5K 26.45
11-10-07 5K 19.09 Ronald on the Run 5K
11-11-07 10K 42.13 Old Reliable 10K
11-20-07 5K 27.07