Running

It's the body's way of trying to conserve its lifetime allotment of heartbeats between periods of high demand. Don't want to run out unexpectedly.

The article was interesting, and they are trying to say there's a chance that people who genetically have a lower HR, may tend to end up being more athletic which might lower it even more (and also put them at the higher scale of performance abilities) it's a lot of guessing.

And the last paragraph of the article was kinda stupid. Ain't nobody cruising around at 34bpm or 40bpm. I assume they mean to say if your training partners RHR is 34 to your mid 40's don't lose any sleep over it, but as worded using 'cruise around' and 'same mileage' makes it sound, to me, like they're referring to while exercising.

So if your training partner can cruise around with a 34 bpm heart rate while you sit in the mid-40s on the same mileage, that may reflect genetics as much as grit. That may be a frustrating or reassuring conclusion, and it may depend on which side of that heart rate threshold you sit on.

I've always figured it had to have a genetic element.

I was sedentary most of my life until I took up running just before I turned 40. It turns out despite not having a fitness or running background, running came easily to me, and I got fast really quickly, and my RHR dropped in to the low high 30s/low 40s. I trained hard, but comparable to other dedicated non pro athletes.

I felt like I was getting "more bang for my buck" with training than a lot of my peers, and I figured that had to be genetic.

Even when I stopped running over the covid years, and put on weight and lost my fitness, my RHR still stayed in the mid 40s.

These days (just over 10 years later) I'm "BMI obese", but running around 15km a week, and my RHR is back down in the high 30s and low 40s. And there is no way that could have happened just due to my training levels.

And what is the answer?