I’ve been reading a book about HR training for running and fancy trying it out (had an accident last year and wanting to regain some fitness).

I have a HRM that I use with my Edge 500 when riding, but when running I use my phone instead (Edge doesn’t seem as accurate at running speeds, and I use the phone for MP3s etc).

My HRM connects to Endo and Strava just fine on my phone (Sony Z1 compact) to log HR but ideally I’d like alerts when I exceed a certain level. Does anyone know of an Android app that does that?

I’m working on an app that does just that. Send me an email with your Google account email address and I’ll add you to the testers list.

Just be aware that there’s a lot of lag in HR, so if you work hard it takes a few minutes to catch up, by which time you’re over the crest of the hill and now having to take it doubly easy as you’re going downhill and your HRM is beeping at you to slow down, then you get to the bottom and repeat it on the next hill.

I find it more useful to track fitness/recovery, so if the average on strava is abnormally high or low (for the same pace, or perceived exertion) it’s a good indicator that something’s not right. Rather than trying to get the HR up when in actual fact it’s low because I’m struggling with already being overworked form the last session and should be taking it easy.

I saw HR lag mentioned elsewhere and made the mistake in thinking it was caused by the monitoring device so thought it’s going to be hardly worth worrying about.

Obviously the lag is in the body’s response to effort, but to begin with, I frequently found I wasn’t even aware of increased effort (on a bicycle, can be very subtle).

Thanks for the advice about HR lag, it’s definitely worth knowing about and possibly makes sense of similar behaviour I’ve noticed on the bike.

For what I want right now I won’t be working hard at all on the easy days, so I just want to know if I’ve accidentally strayed over a level, rather than closely monitoring when I’ve ramped up and back down again.

Just be aware that there’s a lot of lag in HR, so if you work hard it takes a few minutes to catch up, by which time you’re over the crest of the hill and now having to take it doubly easy as you’re going downhill and your HRM is beeping at you to slow down, then you get to the bottom and repeat it on the next hill.

It’s not that slow unless you’re seriously unfit, so I wouldn’t worry about it. You can’t hurt yourself by “exceeding” your max heart rate, it just means you’ve measured a new maximum. Can be useful if training to a percentage of max heart rate but to be homest you’d be better off discovering your lactate threshold.

Pretty sure Runtastic Pro can do exactly what you need it to, BTW.

Thanks for that, I’ll have a look at Runtastic.

As a bit of background;
– Broke my neck in Oct, had to wear a halo-brace for 3 months.
– Prior to that I was reasonably fit: sub-20min 5k Run, approx 26min 10mile TT cycle (on a road bike rather than a TT bike)
– Been trying to start running again off and on since start of Feb
– Lost a bit of speed and running feels harder now (unsurprisingly)
– Used HR strap on a recent run and was a bit alarmed at how erratic it seemed compared with before
– Decided to back off and run at a low HR for a while until I’m comfortable that I’m ready to exert more again.

It’s not that slow unless you’re seriously unfit, so I wouldn’t worry about it. You can’t hurt yourself by “exceeding” your max heart rate, it just means you’ve measured a new maximum. Can be useful if training to a percentage of max heart rate but to be homest you’d be better off discovering your lactate threshold.

I wasn’t thinking in terms of max HR, more that it’s almost impossible unless you live somewhere really flat or with really long consistent gradients to go out for a run and actually keep HR within (say) zone 3, whereas going by perceived exertion I could judge the pace better and get an average HR in the right range, and it was probably pretty consistent rather than trying to adjust the pace based on HR. You know when your body is going easy, about right or too hard, especially when running because if you go too fast you immediately slow back down again whereas a bike tends to coast so you get away with choppier efforts.

@verses I’ve sent you an email with the details, it might’ve gone to your spam folder though. Gmail hates my server, due to a wordpress hack. WordPress is no longer on my server, but Gmail still thinks it’s spammy.