New runner heart rate question.

[Notagainmun]

Lost a lot of weight in the last nine months through diet and walking. I got to a point where I was power walking 5k a day up a couple of steep hills but not getting my heart into aerobic zone so I have started running. Half walk and run a fairly flat zone until I know mostly run but slowly about 12 minutes a mile. My problem is there is an incline half way and I can not run this without my heart rate being too high, no matter how slowly I run. I have to walk five minutes until I get to the top and recover when I continue running.

My goal is to run my old walking route every other day but I can't seem to get passed this barrier. Please advise me you experts.

What makes you say "too high"? How high is it? I've been running for a few years and got to some reasonably respectable (not fast!) 5k and 10k times but even running really slowly my heart rate gets pretty high. I've stopped while pregnant due to this but otherwise unless you have a specific concern I don't think it matters too much. The fitter you get the quicker it'll return to normal when you stop.

Totally not medically trained, though...

It is around 149 but shoots up to 171 on the incline. I am 48 so no spring chicken.

Your max. heartrate should be 220 minus your age so for you 172. Unless you've been advised not to go above that by a professional I'd say go for it! Congratulations on your weight loss!

I would suggest alternating walking and running up the hill - I use multiples of 8 and tend to time my breathing with my stride so currently do 6 strides per breath running and 4 per breath walking and 8 breaths minimum of each. Depending on the hill I might do 1 set of running and 2 walking or 3 running to 1 walking. After a while I am managing less walking and more running while keeping my heart rate a little lower. But it has taken a while.

To make yourself better I would try and get somewhere without evil hills occasionally too.

No one can say what is too high without fancy hospital tests. All these rules of thumb are just rough rules of thumb. They don't work for individuals.

Go with how you feel in deciding how hard to exercise & forget what the heart rate monitor says for now. If it feels too hard, it's too hard. If you feel fine afterwards, it wasn't too hard. If you feel a bit tired, it was probably aerobic enough.