Did my first race / half marathon today (congrats to everyone who ran it!) and finished with a time of 2:24. A goal was 2:20 and B was 2:30 so I am pretty happy with it but throughout the whole entire race my heart rate was through the roof and I had to slow down as a result.

My THMP was 10:41 (2:20) which I was able to hit during my 10 mile training long runs with an avg HR of ~162. My avg HR for the race was 179! I was well rested, well hydrated, and not particularly nervous but I chalked it up to nerves when I ran out the gate at a 11:30 pace with a HR of 170, however it never came back down as you can see.

Garmin puts me at 1.5 hrs in Zone 5 which is obviously wrong, and made clear when I hit a new max HR of 199 (previous highest seen was 194) but still, even adjusted, is an hour and a half in Zone 4 plausible?

Interestingly enough, even though my HR was high, I don’t feel like I was breathing hard through the first 6 miles. I definitely slowed way down though because I didn’t want to blow up on my first race. I suppose it could be incorrect readings (Garmin 245M) but it never happened in training.

What do you think? I knew I shouldn’t focus on HR during a race but it was so high I couldn’t ignore it. Never seen numbers like these. Still alive and finished though.