Sometimes I forget I am not in my 20s anymore

Considering I have not managed a single run in the Burgh since May, my blog title clearly is not applicable this summer. But the good news is I did run this morning, once again in Indiana County.

Because it is hot and humid, I decided before even I began my run that I was going to keep my run at 20 minutes. When I first started out, it was a little over 70 degrees, but I could feel the humidity, not to mention there was a lot of haze in the sky. I kept a reasonable pace for most of the run, and it went okay. Very little pain, which was surprising considering my right calf has been hurting since yesterday morning (and still hurts now, hours later). Of course, the hills were not easy, but when are they ever. Near the end, when I had been running about 25 minutes, I checked my heart rate.

I have not thought about what my heart rate should be for years, although I do try to check it after most runs. For some reason, I thought that if it was around 180 bpm when I was finishing the strongest/fastest part of my run, then I was doing something right.

Recently, however, I came across an article that talked about heart rate. According to this source, you should ideally work at no more than 85 percent of your maximum heart rate. To determine this:

220 - Age (39) = 181 (maximum heart rate)

85 percent of 181 = 153.85 bpm

I did a quick search on the internet and found a handful of articles with heart rate calculation tools. According to those tools, when working out, my heart rate should be anywhere from 91 to 163 bpm, which is quite the range (the higher your fitness level, the higher your heart rate can go). Unfortunately, nowhere did I read that I should be working out at my maximum heart rate, which I come close to sometimes. In fact, today, when I had just finished the end of my run, my heart rate was around 175. Oops.

I need to do some more research to figure out if I am putting myself at risk for a heart attack or something. When I run slowly, I feel pretty good and have the energy to keep going, so it makes me think that I should run harder and faster, to tax myself. The same is true when I swim. And, as I have stated here many times, I have been swimming on average three days per week for the past few months. This past week, I managed four days of swimming, and one of those days I swam 30 laps. I feel good when I exercise and I think I am in pretty good shape. Let's hope that is true.

C'mon heart!