Pace management with heart rate for hiking (3) ~ Are you ready for hiking?

Fitness Level

   I was talking about heart rate zone definition in the last post.   I think it is probably good to use “zone 2” as a target heart rate for hiking if you are doing training regular basis.   It is probably possible to maintain the heart rate within the range during hiking.   For my case, I may be able to push myself to use “zone 3”.   Based on my experience, a good target zone for hiking would be zone 2 or 3.

   Now, let’s think about people who do not do training regular basis.  I think some people still can be a good fitness situation even if they are not doing training.  I think this type of people are a similar as people who is doing training.  The other group would be people who are not good fitness condition.  I got some feedback that the idea to use heart rate to manage hiking pace.  It seems that the scheme does not work very well for some people.   I think the idea could still help, however, the essential problem is that they are not really ready especially a long hiking.

   Even myself, if I stopped training for a while, it was hard to run even if it was really slow pace.  The heart rate is easy to jump up and hard to continue running.   However, a few weeks after I resumed running, it was getting much better and I was able to maintain heart rate even if it was a little higher pace.

   Therefore, I would say if people who are not ready for a hiking, they need to improve their fitness situation first for a better hiking experience.

Test / Adjust the target heart rate

   So I would suggest people to do “test” once they sets the target heart rate.  Let’s say using one of method to define your heart rate zone.   Let’s pick “zone 2” if you are the first time to use heart rate based pace management.   Then let’s try to do some exercise to check if the heart rate zone is reasonable for you.  Please keep in your mind that “exercise” may have some risk to get injury or the worst case it could be a cause of a critical conditions in your life, especially people who do not do training regular basis, older people and etc.   It is probably better to check with doctor / trainer what type of “exercise” you may start based on your situation.

   Assuming you are ok to do some “exercise”.   You may start with “walking”.   You may try brick pace walking around 30 minutes and check your heart rate.  If it is flat load and the heart rate is over or close to the upper limit of zone 2.  You might need to improve your fitness level.  If you can maintain the heart rate within the range for more than an hour, you might want to do slow jog to see if you can maintain the heart rate within the range more than an hour.   You may use this is an initial target heart rate for hiking.  If it is too easy for you, then you can set a bit higher.  You may want to walk hilly trail to get a similar situation as hiking for further adjustment.