By Bill Ward
Media General News Service

Veteran coach Roy Benson has seen it time and again.

When left to their own devices, most runners and triathletes feel too guilty and push too hard.

“They go too fast on hard days and too hard on the easy days,” says Benson, a former University of Florida track and cross country coach who is a nationally certified fitness instructor. “That’s the nature of runners and endurance athletes in general.”

I have to admit it, I’m one of them.

It probably has something to do with my Catholic upbringing, as well as having once trained with elite-level runners who helped me crack 2 hours, 39 minutes for the marathon and 1:14 for the half-marathon.

Back then, just about every workout turned into some sort of race.

Those days are more than 10 years and 20 pounds in the past (I turn the big 5-0 this year), still it’s hard not to look at my watch every mile split and say, “Eight minute-mile? You’re jog-walking, Pugsley! Pick it up, you slacker!”

Next thing I know, I’ve strained my hamstring or calf for the umpteenth time, and I’m forced onto my bicycle to get any kind of workout. Or I just don’t train at all because riding a bike in Tampa does and should scare me to death.

Benson and other experienced coaches know there’s a way to avoid overtraining and the injuries that inevitably follow: use a heart rate monitor during workouts.

I’ve tried heart rate monitors before but usually said to myself “I don’t need that gadget. I know how hard I’m running.” And as a guy, I didn’t like the idea of wearing something akin to a bra, especially one that beeped at me all the time as if I had robbed a bank and required a doctorate in physiology to figure out.

Again, that was a decade ago. Heart rate monitors — and I — have come a long way since then.

Fortunately, the monitors are a lot better, unlike my fitness level. Companies such as Timex, Nike, Omron and Polar have made big improvements to these devices and have, for the most part, made them simpler to use.

But they still require a level of self-awareness. You have to know things such as your resting heart rate (RHR), maximum heart rate (MHR) and your general fitness level. You just don’t strap the monitor to your chest and start running.

I tested Timex’s new Ironman Race Trainer, which has been used by several of the people participating in Sunday’s St. Anthony Triathlon in St. Petersburg. On the surface, it’s similar to ones I’ve used before - a sensor that straps around your chest and a watch that contains the receiver to link to the sensor. What I liked about this model was how intuitive it is to get things up and running. You simply go to the mode that links the watch to the monitor, enter in your personal data and off you go.

But it’s that personal data you absolutely have to get right, Benson says. You need to determine your MHR and RHR. The standard method to learn your MHR is subtracting your age from 220. That’s a good baseline for MHR, but that only gives you the MHR for the “bell-shaped curve” throughout the general population, Benson says. If you deviate at all from the average, you could wind up doing the wrong type of training.

This is where you have to do a little homework. Benson says you learn your MHR by doing a field test - either running a hard workout or running a race.

Your MHR is the point where you feel as if you can’t run any harder or faster without collapsing from exhaustion. But if you’re older than 40 and have any family history of heart disease, go to a doctor and do a treadmill test.

“The key is not getting stuck with that standard MHR formula - that’s really critical,” Benson says. “There’s probably more heart rate monitors in more drawers not being used in this country because when people tried them, they just didn’t make sense the monitor made them walk or sprint when they didn’t feel like it - and they didn’t realize that maximum heart rates can vary so greatly.”

Finding your RHR is easy. Just take your pulse upon waking in the morning

Once you have a MHR and RHR, you can refer to any number of charts to decide how hard your workout is going to be that day. You can choose to run in a zone that is anywhere from 60 percent of your MHR (a slow, easy run) to 90 percent to 100 percent of your MHR (interval training to all-out sprinting).

It depends on your goals what zone you want to train in. Some folks want to train to race. They’ll tend to be in the upper training zones on a regular basis. Others just want to be fit and burn fat. They’ll tend to train in the lower percentages of their MHR.

If you cross-train, Benson says to remember heart rate is “activity specific.”

If you cycle, your MHR will be harder to reach because of the mechanical advantage of the bike.

And in swimming, heart rates can be lowered by the cooling effect of the water. Adjust your MHR goals accordingly.

Web sites such as Benson’s (http://www.coach benson.com) offer charts to personalize training based on MHR and RHR. Timex offers an online training program you can track and chart ( http://www.timextrainer.com) over time.

Bill Ward is a staff writer for The Tampa Tribune.