Get my heart pumping

Today I want to find my max heartrate.

I’m reading a book about fitness myths, and the author cites the “220 minus your age” formula for determining maxHR as one that has nebulous roots in science. She cites a 2001 article in the American Journal of Cardiology that says 208 minus age times 0.7 is more accurate, but can produce results only accurate to plus or minus thirty beats per minute.

So since I’m thirty-four, my maximum heart rate could be anywhere from 154 to 214. Certainly not specific enough to base training zones on.

«This is not an easy test,» writes Lance Armstrong’s trainer, Chris Carmichael. He recommends going harder and harder and faster and faster on a bike, «until you simply can’t go any harder.» Then, he says, «when your vision clears,» look at your heart-rate monitor. That should be your maximum.

John L. Parker, Jr., a runner, wrote about how to do it with running. Start out on a day when you’re well rested, he advises. Warm up by running two to four miles at an easy pace. Then do some sprints to get your heart rate up. Now you’re ready for the real event. You should start with a series of runs up a steep hill about 200 to 300 yards long. Do it about five times, jogging down then charging up, faster each time. On the last sprint up that hill, «keep increasing your intensity until you are sprinting at least the last 100 yards at your absolute maximum speed. You should finish this last repeat with that totally ‘blown out’ feeling you get from sprinting the last 100 yards of a race, which leaves you gasping for breath and grabbing your knees for support.» Then watch your heart-rate monitor, or, better yet, have a friend nearby who can watch the numbers for you. Then write down your maximum.
—Gina Kolata, Ultimate Fitness

So my plan today is to go out onto Urbano drive, warm up with a few miles at 140-150bpm, and then open the throttle up with some interval sprints and see how high I can drive the heartrate. I won’t really have a hill available for this, but I can certainly exhaust myself on the flats. Purportedly this sort of test is safe for most men under 35, but in case I pull a Jim Fixx in the middle of it, well, you all know what happened.