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[Posting on behalf of /u/Percinho who I presume is busy trying to not burn himself making soup]
I’ve run 3 half-marathons before getting a fitbit and seeing my heart rate goes alarmingly high for my slow speed. Just figured out this weekend that I’m tightening my chest subconsciously and can see my heartrate go down when I relax it. How do I train myself to stop this subconsciously self-suffocating behavior?
I have this problem too. I only really focus on my heartrate when I’m trying to stay in zone 2. But my training runs like tempos and strides or race I just go based on effort, but try not to max out my heartrate.
That being said, I love gadgets, I use a chest HR strap that does a pretty good job reading my HR accurately compared to my Suunto 5 peak watch. I use the HR data in short and long term reports. What was my run like today? Am I improving or not?
When I first started running and recording my HR I was super fixated on it, to the point that every time I looked down at my watch I saw it go up. It was stressing and tensing me up. My brother, who’s a much more experienced runner than I am, told me that unless I’m shooting up into my max HR on easy to medium difficult runs I should just focus on effort, breathing, and form. He said those three things will help me relax, HR will just throw me off during a run.