From Summit
Pacing with the heart
rate
One thing I started doing in hiking is pacing with the heart
rate value. This is a concept which is
a similar as heart rate based training for running and other sports. Because I think it can be applied to hiking
especially walking higher altitude like Mt. Whitney trail. The first time I tried this was a hiking to
Mt. Whitney in 2014. Then I felt like it
might work, so that I also tried the next year, in 2015.
Originally, I used the same number as when I run the full
marathon, which is to limit the maximum heart rate up to 170~175bpm (beat per
minutes). This is a number I was using
to run a full marathon based on daily training record. To be honest, I did not have a logical way
to get this number from the data. But
based on my training log, this is a good number to challenge in a race.
The number somewhat worked.
But I felt the maximum heart rate might be a bit higher for hiking. In a race, I may be able to push me to close
to my limit. However, it might not be a
good idea to push myself to close to my limit during the hiking. Although it was not easy, it was
achievable. So it worked somewhat and I
felt it was a better feeling then the worst one which was a case in 2011.
Based on the experience in 2014, I set the maximum heart
rate to around 160bpm in 2015.
In an experience for the hiking in 2015, it works much
better than 2014. The number “160bpm”
is still a bit high as the maximum heart rate.
But I think it is close to optimal value. Overall, I did not feel “exhausted” during
the hiking. It was comfortable overall,
but the total spending time for each section is very close to my best
case. So I think we have a way to
optimize the walking speed for more efficient way to hike around 14,000 feet
elevation.
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