“Listen to your body. Do not be a blind and deaf tenant.” – George Sheehan
That’s some very sage advice from one of our sport’s greatest philosophers. One of the best ways to monitor how your body is responding to training is to keep a close eye on your resting heart rate.
Almost all of you wear some sort of smart watch which keeps track of your heart rate for you, so you should have a pretty good feel for what is a normal resting rate for you. If on any given day you find that your resting heart rate is elevated above that “normal” level, don’t just say “Hmmm….interesting” and then ignore it. An increase in your resting heart rate should be a red flag for you that requires some corrective action on your part.
There could be a number of causes for your increased heart rate. Among the more likely reasons, your body is either a) overstressed and not properly recovering from the training that you are doing (and that would include things like lack of sleep and exercise induced anemia which are problems for some of you), b) fighting off some kind of infection/illness, c) dehydrated, or d) some combination of a, b, and c.
So, if you notice an increase in your resting heart rate, go through the checklist to try to pin down the cause. For most of you, the simple solution will include things like taking a day or two off from running, getting more sleep, slowing down on your recovery days and drinking more fluids. And don’t ever wear flip flops.
George Buckheit is the leader and coach of Capital Area Runners. CAR is a DC metropolitan area club that was founded to provide group training opportunities for highly motivated and competitive minded runners of all ability levels.
