How to run faster at a lower heart rate

We all want to run faster at a lower heart rate. This means you are faster than before while putting in less effort. In this article, I’ll cover the best way to achieve this.

There are many different training principles that break down training zones in their own way. Below is how I break down mine:

Up to 80% of your training should be within your zone 2 heart rate zone. This is where you build that aerobic base. Avoid training too much in zone 1 and zone 3.

Zone 2 explained:

These are your recovery runs and the bread and butter of your training. They should feel easy. A great way to gauge whether you’re working at the correct effort is whether you’re able to hold a conversation the whole time during the run. If you are following your heart rate, this should be somewhere between 62-72% of your heart rate max. Around 70-80% of your training should take place within this zone. Think of this as the ‘foundation of your house.’ Without a solid foundation, it will come crashing down, and likewise, without these runs, your running performance will be negatively affected. We always want to try to shift things upwards. This means you’ll either run at the same pace with a lower heart rate (less effort) or run at the same heart rate (the same effort) at a faster pace. The best way to achieve this is to train consistently according to a smart and productive structure.

A productive running week would look something like this:

Run 2 – 2,5 harder days in a week, and the rest should be easy running.

All you’re aiming to do is to snap out of the comfort zone at least twice a week. The sessions that will do this are things like track/intervals, hills, tempo, quality longer runs and races. This training should sit predominantly within zone 4 whilst sometimes touching both zone 3 and zone 5. This should make up around 20-30% of your weekly training. It’s that sharp end ‘roof to our house’. Try and avoid doing your harder days back-to-back and allow for some recovery time in between. Think of your body as a sponge that can soak up the goodness. By doing this week in and week out, you’re shifting your whole ‘house’ upwards. You will get fitter.

The more your body adapts and transforms to running, the longer you are able to sustain your higher end zones. For example, in my early years of running, I could easily reach zone 5, but I couldn’t hold it for the same amount of time that I am able to now. Your heart is a muscle and should be trained and it will adapt over time. The more you have an aerobic base, the better chance you can handle your top end speed.

If the ratio is 80% easier running, 20% harder quality running, and you’re able to increase the amount of easy running you are doing in a week, then that allows for increased harder training too. 

You may find that you need to incorporate cross training, especially in your early years of running, while your body is still adapting to the running load.

There is a lot of impact when we run and generally, we tend to get a lot more niggles when we first start out. That’s where cross training and strength work becomes crucial. A good way to gauge whether you’re working at the correct efforts, whilst substituting your runs for cross training sessions, is to exercise according to heart rate monitoring that you’re working within the correct training zone for that specific session. If you’re following heart rates closely within training, you need to run with an external heart rate monitor strap. This can either be a chest strap or an arm strap.  A lot of the smart watches these days come with built-in heart rate monitors which are extremely accurate when sleeping or static but as soon as sweat gathers underneath, they start becoming inaccurate.

Remember it’s not all about having the highest heart rate or the lowest heart rate. Some of us are born with naturally lower or higher hear rates than others. What you are ideally looking for here is a big range between your resting HR and HR high. The fitter you get, the more your heart rate low drops.

 Two really good tests to do in order to work out what your heart rate max is:

From there you can work out more accurately what your training zones should be.

A reminder that we should keep 80% of our training easy (within zone 2), and 20% where we are snapping out of our comfort zone and pushing those higher heart rate zones.

Easy running is just as crucial as your higher end training.

Build that ‘house’ of yours and then keep looking to shift it upwards.

 It doesn’t happen overnight, but with consistency comes results.

Onwards and upwards,

Boom Shakalaka!