My Forum

Garmin 110 plus heart rate monitor is around £140 on amazon, basic but ideal for running.

Sports Tracker is a great phone app.  http://www.sports-tracker.com/ I found it worked perfectly on my Samsung Galaxy S2 (which other apps didn't), and it was intuitive and easy to use.  The app is free but a heart rate monitor that syncs with it is about £70.

Ski Tracks http://www.corecoders.com/CoreCoders/skitracks.html best for skiing, but costs 70p (if interested).

Just did the South Downs Half Marathon on 8 June.  This was my first trail half and I had never really appreciated the Elevation Gain on my Garmin until now.  I know humbly know that an Elevation Gain of 470m is a killer.

Anyone got a half marathon for the title toughest half in England/UK/Europe/World?

RicF your 173bpm is 94.5% of your HRM and 

TimR thanks for the link to your earlier post  - 92-97% of HRM for half marathons so that all agrees.....

but I am sure I heard that the anerobic band was 85%

I haven't done a proper test - would this be on a treatmill or on a running track?

I just run up a steep hill for a minute part way through a short run to get my maximum HR on my Garmin 110.  I checked with Garmin and they said they could not see an issue with the data logged.

220-age gives me 170bpm.  My Garmin max has slowly risen from 174 to 177 over a year as my fitness has increased.  If the Garmin is mis-reading max and average HR, wouldn't it mis-read proportionally for all readings?

I have done three half marathon races in the last year and each time my average heart rate was around 93% of HR max (and my max heart rate was 100%).  Is this 'normal' or 'typical'?  

The great atmosphere you get at these races means I am more excited and run faster than during training runs - and I do not feel that I am pushing too hard.  I am fit and do not suffer afterwards - heart rate and pulse are back to normal a couple of hours after the race.

Am I about to explode??