Friday, July 16, 2010

I should be dead.

I aged up last Saturday. That's not why I should be dead though. The reason I mention the aging up is that the birthday brought with it a brand-spanking-new Garmin 405 with heart rate monitor. I've only recently become interested in the whole heart rate thing. In fact, until last Saturday I didn't know didley squat about it. Since then I've found out about the "220 minus your age" equation and target heart rate zones and aerobic vs. anaerobic exercise and resting heart rate and yadda yadda yadda enough to bore most people to tears.

Here's why I should be dead: I went for a run yesterday with my trusty new heart rate monitor. The run was hot, humid, and hilly. My pace was slow, as it has been for months now (don't even get me started on that rant). When I came home and uploaded the data from my watch to the GarminConnect website, it showed my maximum heart rate was higher than the actual maximum heart rate calculated by that 220 bit mentioned above. Did you get that? My heart rate while running reached a value HIGHER than my maximum heart rate! Uh, is it me, or is that totally whack?!?

Apparently I'm now either a zombie or a pathetically out of shape blob who has no business doing cardio and should take up a daytime television/tub of ice cream addiction because each run holds the potential for a massive coronary.

Great.

2 comments:

Gaye said...

Have no fear...the whole "220-your age" formula is completely outdated and has pretty much been totally debunked by this point. You're fine. :-) To actually get your MHR, you need to do a max test, typically on the treadmill. For TRUE accuracy, you need to do the VO2Max test with the funky breathing apparatus, but those are really expensive, and the plain old treadmill tests are pretty darn close.

http://www.howtobefit.com/determine-maximum-heart-rate.htm

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