started her slow-to-fast journey, though, Gardener needed to invest in some electronic gadgetry. "I bought a heart-rate monitor after my second marathon,"says the 44-year old from Hayling Island in Hampshire. "I found a thread on the www

You run, you sweat, you breathe heavily, you eventually stop and recover. Simple... unless you want to know what's really happening to your body, and use that knowledge to control your fitness.That's when you start to think about using a heart rate

people and feeling totally in control. I loved it."What was her secret? Oliner was wearing a heart rate monitor."I was breathing heavily as I went up the hills, but the monitor told me that I was okay, so I sped up," she says. "If it hadn't been

, because it's hard to raise your heart rate early on in a session using reps of just a minute, your readings would be quite low to start with. As a result, aiming to reach, say, 170 for each rep, you would probably start working too hard too early

When you go on holiday, you'll no doubt want to take your training with you. After all, you are off to enjoy yourself. However, this will often mean running in conditions that can affect your heart rate quite dramatically, both at rest

GETTY IMAGESIf you're the proud owner of a new heart rate monitor, you’ll doubtless be wondering just how high you can make it go. And it wouldnt be a bad idea. Coaches and athletes often like to establish a maximal heart rate (or MHR) in order

It would seem natural that your heart rate monitor should be your greatest ally when it comes to race day – but as ever, the reasoning is not that simple. While you can use your experience from previous competitions to your advantage, you'll find

supply, which leads to an accumulation of lactate and rapid fatigue: go too easy and you may not be training hard enough to gain the maximum benefit to your aerobic capacity. In short, there must be an element of control, which is where your heart rate

Heart-rate monitors vary hugely in price and functionality. For less than £20 you can pick up an HRM that simply measures your pulse, while parting with £150+ will give you a monitor that will set training zones for you, tell you how many calories

session. The problem with this is that you end up racing against yourself and running too hard to get consistent results.You might not be surprised to find that your heart rate monitor is the answer. If you use it to control the work you do, you can assess