Balance point test on treadmill

[Mardi]

Hello Everyone,

Last weekend I did my balance point test on the treadmill.  My balance point was at 164 bpm which was almost exactly what I suspected it would be, but much to my surprise, this hr was achieved at a much lower pace then it is when I run on my treadmill at home.  I am the kind of person who gets a bad case of performance anxiety before any event so I was expecting that my HR would be up but not as much as it was.  For example, at 180bpm I was running at 7.6 miles per hour (7:53 mile pace). I repeated this speed as part of my brick workout this week at my heart rate was only 163 bpm. Just to be sure, I held this speed for 15 minutes and my HR stayed between 158-164 bpm.  I felt like I have gone on for quite a while at this pace.  Infact it was about the same pace as I ran in a half marathon in September of 2009. (1:42:41). So what gives? Was it just the day? Nerves? A result of a previous workout? Any comments would be appreciated.

Mardi

[Andrew]

Things that come to mind are:

- calibration of the machine
- lack of sleep
- a previous workout that fatigued any of systems we mentioned in Module 3
- dehydration (HR increases when blood volume low)

Your HR was about 15 beats different. I often notice this much difference, especially in my super early morning spins when I'm short of sleep.

The important part for training is not the speed, but the HR. If you do regular step tests on your own treadmill, you can check it with the treadmill you were tested on next time just for interest.