[BrittanyB]

Hi all! I’ve had a bit of a difficult time wrapping my head around the Pa:HR metric so bear with me if this is a simple concept/silly question.
If my regular training runs end up being about an hour and 20 minutes, I’ve been occasionally taking my file in Runalyze or Training Peaks and chopping off the 20 min. warm-up and referring to the Pa:HR value for the remaining hour to make sure it’s under 5%, thinking that this ensures the run is under my Aet. Does this make sense? When I’ve done this, pa:HR is typically 2% or less which to me would seem to indicate an aerobic effort. Also, feels easy and recovery is great.
I’m contrasting these from a formal drift test because I don’t do the run with an intention of keeping my HR close to a specific number. The average HR per mile is very close (1 or 2 beats variation per mile) but my HR is one of those that tends to bounce around quite a bit.
Does this thinking make sense? Or is the pa:HR metric only useful if the heart rate is quite steady throughout the effort? Thank you!

Topic

[jakedev]

jakedev on October 8, 2021 at 3:54 pm #57829

What you are doing seems to make sense to me. I just separate my run into 30 min laps (after the WU) and divide them.

I believe the important part is making sure that your effort and pace is the same throughout the run. Then your HR will let you know if the effort is aerobic or not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous on October 9, 2021 at 8:21 am #57839

I would second what Jakedev has just said. Using the Pa:Hr metric as a check on the “aerobicness” of them is a useful tool and can also show improvements. As you Pa:Hr drops on these runs you might consider bumping up the HR limit you are using a few beats.

Scott

[BrittanyB]

BrittanyB on October 10, 2021 at 8:55 am #57878

Thank you, Jakedev and Scott! That makes sense to me. I’ll bump it up a bit, making sure to keep under 5%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous on October 11, 2021 at 7:54 am #57913

This Trainingpeaks article discusses Pa:HR, echoing what’s already been said here with more details – how it’s calculated, how it’s used to check aerobic level, caveats, and more:
https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/aerobic-endurance-and-decoupling/

[dcgm]

dcgm on January 4, 2022 at 12:57 pm #61557

Hey, thanks, this looks useful and Runalyze seems pretty slick–better than free TrainingPeaks, I think. When you talk about “trimming” the workouts, how are you doing this? I’ve looked for a minute and can’t find anything except something in Garmin Connect that I don’t think is reversible.

Thanks!