For Hanukkah, I was the happy recipient of the Garmin HRM-Run which is the Garmin heart rate strap that goes with my Fenix 2. I used to be interested in HR training but that was several years ago and honestly I wasn’t really ready for that level of training. Its hard to go for a run and target Zone 3 when every run puts you into Zone 4 and walking was never an option for me. Its really been the last couple years where I’ve gotten very consistent with my training that I realized I could make use of this type of feedback.
I’m not using it in every session but there are some workouts that I target as heart rate based. On Monday, I ran what ended up being a fairly hard run so on Tuesday I decided I needed to have a recovery run. Usually I’d just run easy but what does that even mean? So I put a target of Zone 3 for my run in my Fenix and held a pace that kept my HR between 148 – 167 (I have a pretty high HRmax). End result was a run that felt absolutely great the whole time.
This is really going to be a huge benefit when I hit the bike trainer too. The toughest part of training for the bike for any triathlon for me is that I simply can’t get on a bike outside more than once a week. Sometimes not even that much. I don’t have power meters or even a very nice trainer (its seriously about as cheap as it gets) so I usually just ride off of feel. That got me a pretty great time at IMFL but that’s not a really good way to train in general. Since I have no intention of investing the money in a power meter, I’ll use HR to train instead. I’m looking forward to it really helping my training.