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Why don't calories increase with pace?

In a recent 5 mile run I noticed something odd about calories per lap.

The first mile at a 9.30min/mile pace - 117 calories burned
A couple of miles in the middle at around 8.30min/mile pace - 123 calories burned, make sense if I'm running faster I burn more

But then the final mile - at 7.00min/mile - which is a lot faster (about as fast as I can do for a whole mile) only 104 calories.

My average heart rate during the final lap wasn't much different from the previous laps although the max rate was found in that lap.

Cadence in the last lap was 175 compared to 168 in the previous lap, which makes me think, is calories based mostly on "steps" (there were fewer steps in the last lap since I was running faster and taking longer strides!)?

0 AllanOlesen67 over 7 years ago

I am pretty certain that it is based a lot on heart rate. I have more or less the same relationship between heart rate and calories per minute, no matter which activity I do, including those activities where the watch has no velocity data or any other data except my heart rate.

As I understand your post, you are wondering about the calories per mile, right? Not the calories per minute?

The distinction is important, because when you run faster, you use fewer minutes per mile, which will cancel out some of the extra calories you obviously use per minute. And in theory, if your calorie count per minute does not grow as fast as your speed, then you will end up with fewer calories per mile while running faster.

So when you say that your average heart rate did not increase much when running faster, then your calories per minute probably did not increase much either. And because your minutes per mile were lower, you ended up using fewer calories per mile - at least according to the calculation in the watch.

0 joewadsworth over 7 years ago

Yes of course - obvious now you pointed it out!

My calories per minute increased a little with pace (from 14.5 to 14.8) but not by enough to offset the fact that I was running for 1.5 minutes less during the faster mile/lap.

Thank you :)