Very high heart rate when returning from injury; is this normal?

It’s been a week bro. Relax.

Running provides a completely different stimulus. It's simply more taxing on the body than the elliptical.

Ease back into running.

How long were you continuously training prior to the injury, and where were you at in the overall cycle?, or was is just all around variety training?

What was your injury?

What was your avg HR on the elliptical, and peaks during 'HARD' efforts?

What HRM are you using?

I was at the tail end of an excellent marathon block and in very good shape when I got the lower-leg stress fracture. I was averaging 154-160bpm for 75-85 minutes on the elliptical, which is what my HR would be at 5:40/mi. or faster, with peaks at 170bpm; basically, marathon effort down to 10K effort.

I'm using a Garmin Fenix for everything, which I've found to have a pretty good HRM.

I was out for ~8 weeks earlier this year due to injury/illness and for the first month or so back my HR was 20-30 bpm higher for the same pace. Within 3 months I was back to normal and I’ve subsequently PR’d at every distance and fitter than ever.

Running is hard.

👆

I've found the newer Garmin wrist HRs "pretty good," in fact, very good in general, also. However, I just went for a run last weekend and noticed my HR was 50 beats higher than normal. I stopped twice, checked by pulse and it was around 120-130. I felt like normal, so I finished the run. When I looked back at my Garmin Connect, it ran 180 for about 10 min, then suddenly dropped down to 130 for the rest of the run.

"Pretty good" is great, most of the time. But when you actually need to know your heart rate, wear a chest strap. They are way more accurate.

Are you a pure blood or not?

If not, I'm sad to say, but you likely have myocarditis.

Is this hogwarts?

I find aerobic system always comes back slower than my legs/muscles. So I usually have no prob running 10-15 miles in a go but HR will be high and breathing heavier than usual. Just part of the process listen to your body and should be back to normal in a few weeks

This is quite unusual, I usually return from my monthly injury much faster.

My experience has been that lots of cross training on the elliptical keeps me in great shape and I can return to fast running relatively quickly.

It is possible that you did not lose much aerobic fitness AND your HR will be higher at the same pace as before. Both of these can be true because it takes a bit of time for your running legs to catch up. The elliptical is a great substitute but not a perfect substitute. You were working the leg muscles differently.

The best thing to do when coming back to running is take it easy the first week, run by feel and forget about what pace you used to run. Your legs will catch up quickly.

Hi there. I'm not sure if you're still here, but if you are.....how long did it take your HR to return to normal? I broke my collarbone and had 6 weeks off. Did the same as you, went hard on the elliptical and also the stationary bike during that time off, and on my first easy run back today my HR was 20 bpm higher than normal. I was horrified. I really thought I would have retained more fitness than that through the cross training!

You lost fitness, baby.

I actually am! (This is actually OP, but on a different device.) That was a hot second ago, but my HR was back to normal inside of two months, and I had a huge PR in the 10 mile distance at the beginning of April.

It’s funny that this popped up because I just got back on the shelf with another injury and am doing the same elliptical routine.