2019 Running Season Analysis
2019 was an important, self-affirming training season for me. I had been running long distance for about a decade, starting as a freshman at Northeastern University with the New York City Marathon. My training had taken various forms in the decade+ since my freshman year–sometimes waking up before sunrise, setting out from my dorm room to log miles across new city landscapes; sometimes running with a partner after work as we connected about life, ambitions, and annoying colleagues. But something about 2019 was different fundamentally different.
I had just come off of two very different race experiences. In 2017 I set a marathon PR in Chicago but I struggled to finish a demoralizing London Marathon course in 2018. I was determined to run a race that would best both of them. Moreover, 2019 was the first time that I made a serious connection between my consistent running routine and my mental health and I was incentivized to continue learning more about that relationship.
2019 training was also the first time using a new training method. This time, my heart was in it–literally and emotionally. Rather than focus on external goals of distance or pace, I switched to using a more personal metric–heart rate. This approach allowed me to focus on personal measure of improvement while also ensuring that my body would get the necessary rest required to recover.
The rest of this post will explore the 2019 training season as seen through the data logged from my activities. In the spirit of my new training approach for 2019, I will be evaluating everything against a heart rate benchmark.
Efficiency
When performing any type of cardiovascular-dependent activity such as running, our muscles rely on oxygen pumped from our hearts. The more efficient our we get, the harder our hearts have to work to pump the same amount of oxygen. So as we improve, our heart rate (maximum and average) should decrease as similar levels of intensity. Thus, our heart rate, over time is good benchmark for improvement.
The above graph shows a seven-day moving average of my heart rate for roughly 200 workouts between January 2019 and March 2020. Both my maximum heart rate and average heart rate can be seen decreasing between the start of training in June and the Chicago Marathon in October. My maximum heart dropped by about 20 bpm in that period while my average dropped by 10 bpm. This lead me to ask two questions:
In general, my max heart rate is improving faster than the average. Does this mean that they will converge on a biological efficiency limit? If I were to continue training at the same intensity, on what bpm will they converge? Later in this post, I’ll attempt to make some predictions to answer this question.
I notice that in the last few weeks of training, my max and average heart rates actually increase by about 5-7 bpm. Is this a result of my tapering?
More coming soon…
