Help with my training

[brenglen]

I am a 36 year old mother of 2 and about 6 weeks ago I started training for my first 5k. I am 5'5" and weigh about 128 so I'm not overweight but am in awful shape...never having really exercised before. I'm getting sort of frustrated because I started with the run/walk programs that I have seen on a bazillion different websites and I felt like my heart rate was never getting any lower. One of my girlfriends that runs told me to just run as long as I can. For the past two weeks I have been walking 5, running 20 (slow at 3.5 on the treadmill) and then walking another 5 minutes. I get through it but my heart rate got up to 190 which I believe is too high. Some of my friends told me to just run until I feel uncomfortabe and ignore the heart rate but that makes me nervous.

My questions are these:

How am I supposed to "feel" when I'm at my target heart rate?
Do I rely on my target heart rate and not push myself any further?

Any advice I could get wuold be great...thanks.

[5kgLifter]

Heart rate is one of those odd things since we are all individuals. I got mine up to 198 bpm when I was attempting to find out my Max heart rate so that I could gauge exercsie on that. So, as long as you're healthy, feel no chest pains and can continue your run/walk you should be okay.

There is the Karvonen formula for heart rate which is more accurate 'cos it takes resting heart rate into account so it is kind of customised to each individual. There is also the RPE (rate of perceived exertion) that you could use. Just Google the two terms and you will get plenty of sites on them.

Happy running

[brenglen]

I googled it - thanks so much!!!!