What a Country! As part of my Medicare Advantage Insurance, on Tuesday, March 28, 2023, I received a free FitBit Inspire 2 with a year subscription to FitBit Premium.
I wore the device on my Wednesday 6-mile run, and the reading indicated I was above the 85% peak effort threshold for 50 of the 55 minutes.
The peak threshold is calculated as ((Max Heart Rate – Resting Heart Rate) * 85%) + Resting Heart Rate
The resting heart rate came from the observations recorded on the device.
The Max Heart Rate the device used was calculated as 220 – years old. Being 66, the Max Heart Rate is 154.
I guess the standard formula does not work for slow old runners.
On Friday, I ran my 11-mile Falmouth Bridge, one loop of the Heritage Trail course. My times were out 35:48, loop 34:53, and back 34:52. I pushed hard in the last half mile, and my heart rate peaked at 162, raising the 85% threshold to 148.
So I asked, besides doing a treadmill test, what is an easy way to determine my max heart rate? A good test would be running 3 minutes at an all-out effort on a track.
On Sunday, I ran 16 laps of the JM track. After 15 minutes, I ran a hard 3 minutes with an estimated distance of 600 meters. After a 6-minute resting run, I ran a hard 400 meters in 1:44. Yuck, 28 years ago, a hard 400 meters was 63. With the defined distance, I feel I ran the second segment harder.
In both hard segments, my heart rate maxed out at 176 bpm, which made my zones as fat burning 109-131, cardio 131-159, peak 159+.
Now with better-defined zones, my 6-mile run on Monday was 5% fat burning and 95% cardio, an expected reading.
By the way, I counted steps for one minute while on the track. My resulting cadence was 172 strides per minute. That gives me something to work on to increase my turnover to 180.
Another reading from my FitBit was a calculated VO2 Max of 51 to 55. For a 66-year-old male, that would put me at Olympic Level fitness. They need to work on that calculation.
A cool function of the device is recording sleep data. However, my PVCs are messing up their formulas. Interestingly, the device considers my time watching TV as light sleep.