In addition to usingVDOT values, can knowing how fast your heart is beating be useful

in reaching athletic excellence? As with any of our body's physiological functions,

there are many interrelated factors at play. Heart rate ( HR) is affected by blood flow,
aerobic fitness, and the amount of oxygen being transported by the circulating blood.
In addition, the temperature of the air around you, the clothing you wear, your state
of health, and body-fluid status also affect your heart rate.
Because cardiac output (the amount ofblood pumped per minute) is the product of
heart rate and stroke volume (amount of blood pumped with each beat of the heart) ,
it's useful to understand what affects the flow of blood around the body.
At any given time, your body needs a particular amount of blood flowing to its
parts. During exercise, blood flow increases dramatically to the exercising muscles
and also possibly to the skin. Muscle demand is a function of how hard the muscle is
working, and skin demand depends on the body's need to hold down a rise in body
temperature associated with exercise and climate.
Blood flow to any particular area is determined by cardiac output and resistance
in the vessels that supply that area with its blood, and resistance is a function of where
the body wants to divert blood by constricting some vessels and dilating others.
With this in mind, here are some of the reasons you might notice a change in
heart rate:
• A change in blood volume, often associated with the degree of hydration or

dehydration
• A change in blood available to be sent to the exercising muscles, which depends

on the amount routed to other areas (e.g., to the skin for cooling)
• A change in overall fitness level

• A change in the oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood, which often depends on

nutritional status.
Given the many conditions that affect HR, you must pay close attention to what
exactly you're evaluating when monitoring your HR. Consider some of the times that
athletes monitor their H R.
Morning (Resting) Heart Rate Some athletes use their "wake-up" H R to measure
fitness, but keep in mind that resting heart rates can vary a great deal, even among
highly trained runners. A world-record holder I tested on many occasions never had
a heart rate below 60; for others, resting H Rs drop well down into the 30s. Monitored
on a regular basis, a slower morning HR than usual can indicate improving fitness.
Conversely, a consistent increase in wake-up HR can indicate overtraining, dehydration,
or poor nutritional status. In any case, you can easily measure resting HR by placing
a finger on a pulse point and looking at a watch or clock with a second hand. Be sure
to do this while you're still lying down in bed, before sitting up.
Exercise Heart Rate Most people assume that measuring heart rate during exercise
tells you precisely how hard you're working. As I mentioned earlier, the problem with
62 Daniels' Running Formula
this assumption is that heart rate is influenced by many factors other than just how
hard the body is exercising (working) .
Thus, ifyou adjust your work intensity to produce the same H R today that a previous
workout suggests that it should, you actually could be working harder (or more easily)
than you have set as a goal. Is your goal in training to produce a particular HR or to
subject a system of the body to a certain amount of stress?
For example, ifyou've been performing particular workouts for a couple of months
at sea level, will you try to reach the same HR in similar workouts at altitude? Ifso, you're
surely understressing the exercising muscles because at altitude less oxygen is being
delivered with each beat of the heart, and to get the same oxygen delivery, HR must
increase. Otherwise, you'll undertrain the muscles you're targeting in your workout.
It's not uncommon for an exercising HR to be higher on stationaryexercise equipment
(particularly indoors, where there's little air movement) than when exercising at the same
stress outdoors, where movement ofair can lead to better body cooling. The body's reaction to increased heat
stress is to send blood to the skin, which usually leads to a higher
HR. Setting up a fan that faces indoor exercise equipment can help in such a case.
Needing to wear more clothes during winter running can also affect the H R associated with a particular speed of
running. Of course, running against (or with) the wind,
over hilly terrain, or on poor footing can also affect HR as it might relate to a desired
runnmg pace.