Garmin reports

I've recently bought a garmin 110 with heart rate monitor, I uploaded it to their website to see a report on my run, here it is.

I recently ran a half marathon in 1.54 but I had just recovered from illness and  didn't push myself so this time is a bit below what I think I'm capable of.

This is very new to me and I would like to know how other people use this sort of info to plan their training, I have signed up for a full marathon in May so no rush.

I plan to get more runs in with reports and would be interested to see other peoples run reports and race times so I can get an idea of how others train with what sort of results. Thanks for looking.

The writing is very small, but it looks like you've done a 3.65 mile run mostly downhill at an average of 7:29 mins per mile on a steadily increasing pace.

For what its worth, there appears to be little correlation between heartrates, the downhill or the increases in pace.........so I can totally appreciate why you feel that this information tells you very little.

I will say a couple of things. Your heartrate at the beginning being so high indicates an insufficient warmup. It really shouldn't be as high as it is at the faster pace at the end of the run. Also, a 180BPM peak and a 167BPM average is pretty high for a guy born in 1972 for a 3.65 mile training run?? (I'm assuming your user name corresponds to your birth year)...........I'm guessing that this was a very tough 3.65 miles, because you're well up in you high anaerobic training range at these rates......at least as high as a tempo run should take you and rather higher in some places of the run.

The real benefit of these reports is so that you can see over time if your fitness is improving. Similar workouts at similar paces should start to show a reduction in heartrate BPM. Likewise, certain workouts will end up being completed at a faster pace.....and its good to compare, month on month/year on year.

What we all need are decent weekly training plans with direction. The McMillan online calculator is a very useful tool for establishing the training paces that you should carry out certain workouts at. I'd bash in your half marathon time in and go from there.

Thank you for a full response. You're right I didn't warm up at all, I never do. So the info told you something it didn't tell me. And something for me to do.

With the online calculators and similar devices I've found it really difficult to judge pace hopefully with this gadget that problem will be solved.

This particular run was horrid,it took me a while to find the satalites which really didn't set the mood and about 15 mins in it started to hail and rain, maybe my heart rate was affected.  It was meant as a tempo type run to gauge my heart rate but with the circumstances I don't think I'll take much notice on this one attempt.

I felt awful and cut the run short. Hence the mainly down hill.

Don't move while the Garmin is looking for satellites. I tend to put it outside the front door while I get my shoes on, but I live in a nice area! Or if running from work I put it on top of the car while I sort myself out (again, nobody around at that time to steal it!)

If it's really struggling turn it of then on again, it sometimes does the trick.

Agree - my Garmin picks up the satellites much more quickly if I leave it still whilst it does so.

To make the most of the information from your Garmin you really need to know what your max HR is - the 220-age formula is next to useless. Also make sure that you've moistened the connectors otherwise you can get a peak at the start of your run until they make a good connection.

I train to HR rather than pace so if I'm tired, it's hot or weather conditions are bad I run within the HR zone that corresponds with the aim of that workout i.e. general aerobic, tempo etc rather than trying to push for a certain pace and beating ,myself up if I can't hit it. What  can then see from the graphs (hopefully) is that my pace becomes faster for the prescribed HR - which indicates an improvement in fitness over time.

Thanks for your replies. One idea I had with the garmin was to train by heartrate, and as you say the 220-40 is possibly worse than useless. I read that to find a certain hr level run 10k pace, although I can't find where I read it, so lacking some direction there.

As Jamie said "What we all need are decent weekly training plans with direction." Which is what I'm trying to work out as my training for the last 6 or more months has been haphazard.

I have a few books which I like. Amby Burfoot, Richard Nureka and Jack Daniels. Which I'm trying to understand so I can know how best to train and devise a good training plan. There are so many different options which all seem to give good results so finding a way which suits my physiology and preferences is quite a challenge. I quite enjoy reading the books and thinking about it though.

Finding the satalite requires walking up the road 50m or so which wasn't too bad the last run as I expected it.

I'm sure more can be gained from these readouts then just seeing how much you've improved, I've had a brief read of a site, restwise.co.uk, which looks interesting but too expensive.  Two of the markers they use are resting hr and previous days performance. I imagine that how your heart reacts to the same training would give an indication of performance, although this might be more useful for acomplished atheletes rather then a hopefully improving one like myself.

Maybe I'm hoping for too much and should content myself with just following a simple training plan, if only there was such a thing. Options are bad.

First you need to start the watch a few meters into your run so that your scale doesn't start at 50min/mile. That way you can see more detail.

Second it takes weeks of regular data and a few races to get a good idea of what you're capable of heart rate wise.

I'm 43 my MaxHR is 196. I revised this over a year of races and 196 was achieved at the sprint finish of a 10k. I tried the run up a steep hill 3 times method but just couldn't push myself hard enough.

Over about 6 half marathons I gradually pushed myself harder and continue to push myself, using the HR as a guide. I know that with a max of 194 I can run for a couple of hours at 170-174. Possibly more.

If you do the same long run each week, you can see how you slow when it gets hot and still keep the same HR. You can also see if you have been overtraining or are ill as the HR shows higher than normal, all other things being equal.

I'll try to link to my reports, there are a few pages of them. I have an FR60 so no GPS data, just speed, distance and HR. I know where the hills are and you'll see them as the speed drops and HR climbs.

edit: Fill yer boots:

Garmin Activities

I tried your link Tim but it just took me to my own garmin page. Thanks for reply.

Seth - I measure RHR too so that I can see if I'm getting ill/over tired/over trained too and like TimR took my MHR from the reading at the end of a few shorter races (10k or 5 mile).

The most important thing is to find a training plan that fits in with your life and that you're going to be able to stick with.

I agree with you to a large extent little miss, but to keep me going, give focus, achievement and enjoyment I like to have goals.  I have the goal of the marathon in may but I want to set a goal which is both in reach and quite high. At the moment I have the idea of going under the arbitrary time of 4hrs but I'm greedy and want to get  the qualifying time for london, not expecting it this year mind.

It's very difficult for me to know and keep within my ability, I did some running when I was 18 (40 now as name suggests) I had a run which was 4.2 miles which I could do in 24mins after about 8 months of running which is about how long I've been running for now and I can't get close to that which is frustating.

As for training to HR I just read in the Jack Daniels book that he doesn't think it's too useful to everyone, he doesn't seem to think one size fits all. Maybe it does for some people and I could be one of those but how would I know?

Hopefully I'll be able to work out a training plan in time to make good use of it for may.

Thanks for your comments

I've looked at your plots and would suggest the following:

You don't have a max HR but you do have 1:54 for a half regardless of effort, that's the best you have so you base your runs on that.

A 10 mile run aiming for 9min/mile consistently. I don't know if it's becuase it's GPS but your pace is up and down lots. Slow down and concentrate on keeping an even pace. Don't worry about speed for now. After about an hour your HR is starting to drift upwards and you're slowing down so that suggests you're starting off too quick for a slow run. This will work on your endurance.

A 3 mile run at 8min/mile. Again aim at consistency. This will work on your speed.

A 7 mile run 2miles warm up, 3 miles at 8:30 then 2 miles warm down. This will work on your half marathon tempo.

Don't treat every run as a race.

Try it for a few weeks then race a half. See what time you do and what your HR does during the race then revise your training tempos.

As you can see from my plots - I should take my own advice - but my excuse is I have been marathon training so taking a slightly different approach

I am now starting my Half training for Feb-May.

I am actually trying to build up to marathon training.

comparing tuesdays run with sundays, it baffles me that my heart rate is so much lower, it could have been the cold on sunday and the fact that it was dark which made my footing very troublesome. which could go some way to explaining my high heart rate the previos weds.

As for the variation in my pace, I've no idea if that's the gps or me, but looking at my daytime 3.6m run which seems more steady I'm guessing it's me, if I run in the dark, I'll run a bit slower I think.

ps. if anyone else wants to look at my garmin reports and throw in their tuppeny bit just say.

Your HR are not a lot different on your 3mile runs. You were running at different speeds so faster you run the higher your HR. You hit 190 at one point so I owuld put 190 in as your MAX for no then revise it upwards later.

Sunday your HR is similar up to 53mins then you hit a hill and start to tire because, as I say, you're running too fast.

Slow down on the LSR (Long Slow Run) and work on endurance, speed will come as a result of your 3mile runs.

I agree, the sunday run was too fast for lsr. The second half is certainly higher hr then the first half combined with slowing down which suggests to fast.

i'll try 9min miles for next sunday and see how that goes.

It seems like you're doing 10 or 13 mile runs once or twice a week, is that all you do?

For marathon training generally I was doing a 10mile at Marathon Pace, a fast 4.5 mile and then 13-18 mile LSR. I don't make everything public. I've dropped back down to 13 for the LSR at the moment.

Do you find the cadence counter any good? What do you try to get on that, I read 180 p/m which seems very quick.

This is what Jack Daniels says in his book on cadence.

More importantly according to Daniels, most elite runners have a cadence that is much faster than beginning runners; he has rarely observed an elite runner with a cadence slower than about 180. I took a look at a couple more videos and confirmed Daniels’ observation.

http://sciencebasedrunning.com/2011/07/the-basics-cadence/

I read it in his book but it's quoted there.

What I was asking, not very clearly, was if you train according to cadence?, you don't. And I thought that 180 steps per min, which is what is recomended, seems very fast to me.

Side note, not sure if this is a private conversation or if others are interested? any interested lurkers say hi? my garmin name is seth72 here:http://connect.garmin.com I've set it to show all, so it's not a case of I'll show you mine if... just have a look.