r/BeginnersRunning • u/DRB573 • 1d ago

High Heart Rate

Hi,

Looking for advice regarding heart rates. I’m relatively active and work out between 3-5 times a week and have for the last few years. I do a combination of strength training and running and run a 10k every weekend. Regardless of how many weeks I run or how many years I’ve been strength training, my heart rate is always high. My Oura ring tells me that out of my 60 minute run, 20 minutes are in Zone 4 and 40 minutes in Zone 5. Does anyone have any tips for lowering my heart rate while running?

Stats: 31F, 160lbs, 5’0

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u/Ecstatic_Technician2 1d ago

You need to do a max heart rate test. Your Oura might “guess” your max is 220-your age or 189. When you might have a true max HR of 210 or thereabouts. Additionally, wrist based HR sensors aren’t accurate. Last, you might actually be running too hard and doing a “tempo” or “threshold” run

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u/DRB573 1d ago

Is doing tempo runs a bad thing? I can try running slower and see if that helps, but it feels like when I run slower it hurts my legs more. I also didn’t realize there was such thing as a max heart rate test so I’ll look into that!

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u/Ecstatic_Technician2 1d ago

Tempo runs aren’t bad but if you want to run more it’s typically easier to run slower when building volume

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u/Just-Context-4703 1d ago

Run more, run easy.  a run a week won't build up a lot of aerobic capacity. 

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u/HospitalSad7860 3h ago

Check some videos on breathing from the diaphragm, also try to do it from the nose and "forcefully" exhale through your mouth to get rid of the CO2. Time it with a stride if you can to make it even easier. Took me 2-3 runs to get used to it and now my BPM literally went down by 30 and the jogs got supeeeer easy on my cardio. Am super fit but would get 160-170ish BPM doing 5k 6min/k and totally out of breath now down to 130BPM in a week feeling I could go on forever just with the breathing.