Extremely Hot Sweaty Workout Today (I must Be Getting Soft)

[bcalvanese]

I'm pretty hard core even for an old guy. I blame it on the 6 years I spent in the army back in the 80's. As an example, I once started getting shortness of breadth (more than a usual smoker). I tried walking it off for a few days like they tell you to in the army, but it was getting worse. I finally went to the doctors (almost didn't go), and he sent my directly to the emergency room at the nearest hospitol. Turned out I had blood clots in my lungs and spent almost the next week in ICU.

Anyway. I live in the southeastern PA, and this weekend we are in an excessive heat warning. I went to Tyler State Park to do my walk about mid day and it was already 110 degrees with the heat index. I have been doing a 2min jog/2 min power walk interval, but for the Tyler walk I do a 1 min jog/2 min power walk because of all the hills.

The first half of this walk is almost all up hills, and I normally get into the lower end zone 5 (90 - 100 percent of my MHR) for short periods of time, but for the most part stay in zone 4 (80 to 90 percent of MHR).

For some reason today I hit zone 5 faster than usual and seemed to stay there. Then it started creeping up to the higher end of zone 5 and at one point I even hit my MHR. I listened to my body and stopped the run interval part and just power walked the rest of the way (except for a short sprint in the middle cause I was going down a hill). I kept a close eye on my heart rate and adjusted my pace to try and keep it in zone 4. It was truely the hottest jog/walk I've taken, and I think I was just pushing myself a little too hard on this one due to the heat.

Here is a link to the workout on my Garmin Connect...

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/1301943937

Keep in mind that I am 59 years old and my mHR is 161 (163 according to a stress test I had when I was 57).

I am a believer in pushing yourself, and my modo is "if ya ain't huffin and puffin and sweatin, ya ain't doin it right".

But I am also a believer in listening to your body and taking steps to adjust as needed to stay in a safe zone.

Or am I just getting soft?

[A_Lurker]

I'm not sure anyone here can answer your question.  I know in my 40s I could go over my MHR while doing HIIT.  I used to finish my weight lifting routines outside and run circuits around the yard/pool.  Of course I'm the worst person to give advice since not once, but twice I've ignored symptoms that ended up with hospitalization.

I'd suggest having the discussion with your family doctor about your maximum heart rate.  Suggested numbers are just that.  Your physician will know more about your personal limits.  Oops, after I hit post I saw your comment about having a stress test.  So, in that case you're really not being a softie.  You probably do need to listen to your body. 

[Dawnsfeelingfit]

Not soft.....I'm in Mass and I walked today too. Was not as hot as where you were but bad enough....and the humidity.  All that puts lots of extra stress.  I personally think the max workouts should be on the cooler, dryer days.....I got nervous today when my head was pounding lol.  yes, we need to listen to our bodies!

[shipo]

Funny thing, something like 30 years ago I figured out if I trained in the heat and humidity, it wouldn't bother me so much when I was out in it regardless of what I was doing.  This Thursday evening the heat index was 104 degrees right at the start of the CIGNA 5K, New Hampshire's largest race every year.  A work buddy of mine and I typically do the honors when it comes which of us old farts (he's 43 and I'm 59) comes across the line first in races where our company running team signs up.  We agreed to keep each other honest and not to push the pace on such a hot night, errr, too much.  Last week at a 5K race he finished with a 22:15 and I finished with a 23:05, this week with us taking it "easy" due to the heat he finished with a 25:44 and I finished with a 25:16.

As one of our teammates said after the race, "You old guys are just too fast."  🙂

[FitBeforeFifty]

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@A_Lurker wrote:

I'm not sure anyone here can answer your question.  I know in my 40s I could go over my MHR while doing HIIT. 

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It isn't possible to exceed your MHR, your max is your max. It is possible to go over your max ESTIMATED HR and if you do it just means the estimate isn't correct for you.

I haven't raced or trained for racing in a couple of years but when I did, I knew what my actual maximum HR was based on 5K races and/or 1 mile intervals I ran during training. At that time, my MAX HR was 182 whereas my max estimated HR was 172. When racing shorter distances (5K) or running intervals in the heat I would always exceed my max ESTIMATED HR. In fact, if I didn't, I knew I wasn't running my intervals hard enough. 

Just to be clear, however, these were speed work intervals not intervals like @bcalvanese is running. I'm not suggesting he should be running those type of intervals at max capacity. When you train for a race, you are running intervals that should be close to your max capacity based on the selected interval distance. That's different than running intervals for run/walk while trying to work your way up to running without walking -- for this type of run/walk interval, you SHOULDN'T be running close to max -- these should be at an "easy" pace.

Long story short, you can't exceed your max HR ... just a pet peeve of mine.

[shipo]

To build a bit on what @FitBeforeFifty was just writing, MHR is pretty much a genetic thing and has nothing what-so-ever to do with training/conditioning.

@FitBeforeFifty, regarding what you said about your heart rate when you're racing, I just looked at my chart from the very warm and humid race on Thursday evening; compared to some recent workouts where I've momentarily gotten my heart rate up into the low 170s and high 180s, my co-worker and I took this race quite easy:

EDIT: Yikes, my bad, I meant to say, "...high 170s and low 180s..."  Duh!

[bcalvanese]

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@FitBeforeFifty wrote:

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@A_Lurker wrote:

I'm not sure anyone here can answer your question.  I know in my 40s I could go over my MHR while doing HIIT. 

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It isn't possible to exceed your MHR, your max is your max. It is possible to go over your max ESTIMATED HR and if you do it just means the estimate isn't correct for you.

I haven't raced or trained for racing in a couple of years but when I did, I knew what my actual maximum HR was based on 5K races and/or 1 mile intervals I ran during training. At that time, my MAX HR was 182 whereas my max estimated HR was 172. When racing shorter distances (5K) or running intervals in the heat I would always exceed my max ESTIMATED HR. In fact, if I didn't, I knew I wasn't running my intervals hard enough. 

Just to be clear, however, these were speed work intervals not intervals like @bcalvanese is running. I'm not suggesting he should be running those type of intervals at max capacity. When you train for a race, you are running intervals that should be close to your max capacity based on the selected interval distance. That's different than running intervals for run/walk while trying to work your way up to running without walking -- for this type of run/walk interval, you SHOULDN'T be running close to max -- these should be at an "easy" pace.

Long story short, you can't exceed your max HR ... just a pet peeve of mine.

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Agree. I'm pretty hard core and push myself every time unless I'm doing a recovery jog/walk, but this one just felt a little too much. And I think the fact that I was having trouble keeping my heart rate "down" was a signal to that. Normally I have trouble keeping my heart rate "up", which is the main reason I started adding jog intervals.

I think it's great that we have these tools to monitor our heart rate as we are exercising, and we can just look at our HR anytime as we go along. I have learned a lot about how my heart reacts to the workouts i'm doing, and being able to adjust my pace to keep my HR at certain levels.

Good stuff.

[A_Lurker]

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@FitBeforeFifty wrote:

Long story short, you can't exceed your max HR ... just a pet peeve of mine.

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Good point, estimated MHR should have been what I said.  Basically doing HIIT I could hit 200bpm (and this was with a Polar strap), of course I was completely done when I was done.