Speed work: I WIN!

I respect those people that can run their speed work outside. The first & last time I tried it outside, it was July 4th, 2007, on a track at 11am and with 76% humidity. I did the first mile warm-up and then totally bust on the first speed mile and I gave up after that.

That's why I do my speed work on the treadmill only now. Tonight was great!
0.5 mile @ 5.2 mph : 11:32 min/mi
1.0 mile @ 7.0 mph : 8:34 min/mi
0.5 mile @ 5.2 mph : 11:32 min/mi
1.0 mile @ 7.0 mph : 8:34 min/mi
0.5 mile @ 5.0 mph : 12:00 min/mi
1.0 mile @ 7.0 mph : 8:34 min/mi
0.5 mile @ 5.2 mph : 11:32 min/mi
Walk
Total: 5.15 miles : 552 cal : 52:06

After the first speed mile, I could feel the burn in my thighs and I had a moment of doubt but I kept at it. At the end of the third speed mile it was tough and I was breathing hard, fast and loud. I also remembered what I read about cadence and how Elites lift their knees a little higher to get more of a faster turnover. So I did that on my 2nd & 3rd mile.

click to see bigger

I went out and bought a 6 pack of beer afterwards. I burned 552 calories and probably barely ate that today. So I had a bottle of beer and a slice of German Chocolate cake. I WIN again!

I received my winter running items in the mail today. A pair of pants & another top. Just in time for the weather to be 45 degrees on Saturday. Oh well, I'm sure that I'll use it sooner rather than later. They'll be a lot more wicking than the jogging pants & fleece shirt I wear. I may have to buy another plastic drawer unit soon!!

By the way, I shaved tonight. I could feel the vibration and wind on my legs and couldn't take it anymore. So out came the electric shaver!

Categories: heart rate, shaving, speed work, treadmill runs

Heart rate & cadence

Training Zones	Heart Rate	Objectives
60%	137	Fat burning and re-energise glycogen stores
70%	151	Develop oxygen transportation systems
80%	165	Improve lactic acid threshold
85%	172	Lactic threshold
90%	179	Speed

Tonight was such a good run for me! I was debating whether I should do a Tempo run, a Speed workout or the fun Hill challenge. I decided on the Tempo even though I sorta already ran one on Monday. My normal run speed is 6.5mph which is around 9:37 pace. Tonight, I did the 4 mile tempo run at 9:05, with the last mile at 8:57.

The above table is what I should be hitting with my heart rate when my resting heart rate is 54 and my max heart rate at 192. Tonight, I should have been in the 80-85% area. I was running around the 170's but didn't think that it was high enough, so that's why I upped it to 8:57. Lo & behold, I increased my heart rate to 182-184. Hmm, now I was reaching speed pace. I unfortunately, didn't have this chart available on me so I didn't know. But now, I will print this out and keep it with me in my running bag (well, at least try to remember it!).

I even counted my cadence tonight. Counted the right foot landing in a minute. 30+30+24=84.

...most elite runners maintain a cadence of 85-95 regardless of pace or distance of the event...

Unfortunately, I didn't enter that range. I was just 1 step shy of it. But I sure as hell felt like an elite! Especially as I was drinking out of my bottle. I remember last year, watching the New York City Marathon and seeing Paula Radcliffe drink out of bottle with her left elbow sticking out. I just felt so cool! And the best thing was that I was in the front row of the treadmills so people got to see it all and wonder how I could be going so fast and drinking out of my bottle and still look so cool and collected. HA! My sports tank was drenched though I noticed once I got to the locker room.

It was a good run. I'm looking forward to hopefully finally running outside on Saturday!!

Categories: cadence, heart rate, treadmill runs

ANGER!!!

Can I have a redo on this day?

First, I get up around 7:30a and dressed for a treadmill run at the YMCA. Shorts, tank, new shoes, heart rate, jogging pants, zip up fleece, and my jacket. Leave around 8:10a and I go outside to drive across the street to the Y. Yes, I live within in a 6 minute walk to the Y but when it's -2 outside, I'd rather not. And I'm glad I did for as soon as I went outside the first breath I took hurt my lungs and my nose hairs froze. But I get to my car. And it doesn't start. *sigh* Not again. It happened last week and weekend when the first deep freeze came on through.

So instead of just giving up, I go back upstairs to put on another pair of shoes, grab my fleece headband and neck gaiter and decide to trek my way across to the YMCA. I finally make it over there and walk to the Workout Center. I tell the guy my situation and it looks like the treadmills are not that busy about 6 are free. He says that's fine, it shouldn't be a problem. So I pick one out, still sign up for the 30 minute but he knows that I want to go for longer. I take off my pants, change out my shoes (I didn't want to walk through any snow with my new shoes) and I finally get going around 9a. But I was frozen to the core.

It starts filling up around that time too. I worry a little but since I know that I have my treadmill until 9:30a no biggie. I finally get in the zone in the last few minutes of that 30 minutes. I notice this kid jumps on the treadmill next to me. His friend is waiting behind him. I don't really give it too much thought though. Then this YMCA lady Nazi comes over to me saying that someone signed up for this treadmill after me. I tell her (mind you while still running) that can't they run on one of the other 5 treadmills open? She said his friend running on that one (points to the one where the kid running) and he signed up for this one. I told her that I'm in the middle of my long run and I cleared it with the guy behind the desk. She said that "today is his first day and he didn't understand the way the sign up worked. You can only sign up for 30 minutes." I asked "can't he use the open one on the other side?" She said "no, he wants this one and your time is up. You can get off and use another treadmill and sign up for another 30 minutes."

Mind you, I'm really really angry at this time. I just finally got in the zone, comfortable with doing 6 miles on a treadmill and then this happens. So I stop the treadmill and start to grab my items and the lady comes back to me saying that the treadmill on the other side is open and he said he can run on that. I just looked at her and said "I just stopped my treadmill, I can't get those miles back now!" She said Thank you. And I just wanted to scream!!!!! I go over to the sign up sheet, pick another treadmill and sign up for 30 minutes.

I go over to pick up my items and saw the kid was already setting up his speed. I asked if he saw the mileage on it. He stuttered and said "Um, no, no." Grrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!! I think it was 32 minutes and I was running at 9:40 min/mi so I can figure it out on Runner's World. (32:34 min @ 9:40 min/mi = 3.37 mi)

I got to my treadmill but I already lost my rhythm. It's the first row so there's that. This treadmill seems lower or I seem higher above it. Then it's crooked so I wasn't lined up with the folks in front of me and it totally threw off my kilter. I just wasn't feeling it anymore. I was still fine till about the last few minutes then my heart rate started to sky rocket. I knew that was because my body started to not like this distance. So at 30 minutes, I stopped which was 3.11 miles.

Total of 6.48 miles for the day. I think. I have no idea since my run got interrupted! I was not about to go outside and run at a -2. I pushed my heart rate monitor up too high thinking that it was falling and it needed to be higher on my chest so at one point the number was really low. Then I lowered it when I saw the 60's and I pushed it down a bit and it started going right up! I was keeping around the 170's except at the end when it went to the 180's.

But I think next week, if this keeps up, I'm gonna to go over earlier. It was easy to get out of bed when I knew that people were waiting. But when I know that I'm going to do a treadmill run and it would be there all day, I had no rush to get out of bed. Stupid mind.

And if this weather keeps up, I'm gonna have either a personal worst in the marathon run OR go from the marathon to just the half marathon. I'm never doing a Spring marathon again. Have I said that before? :-)

Ohhh and I also found out why my Garmin is not telling me my calorie count when using the heart rate. It's because Garmin does their calorie count by speed and/or elevation and not by heart rate. This is the web page that I read told me this. Makes sense now.

Now since I didn't eat anything this morning before my run, I'm going to eat a bagel and take a shower and then just chill out in my apartment all day long. Maybe tomorrow my car will start. I want Pie!!

Oh but my shoes were good! The red part of the bottom makes it really smushy and soft. So I liked that. However, I think I put on my left shoe wrong because my toes kept going to sleep on me. So I have to adjust the shoe laces. But otherwise, I like them. We'll see how it goes once I get in the double digits. Whenever that might happen.

Categories: cold weather, garmin, heart rate, shoelaces, treadmill runs, YMCA

Frustration

Grrr, I totally feel like quitting my step aerobics. It's frustrating. It takes me a few times to get the steps down. And I feel like a complete fool doing both the steps & the arms. No worries, I'm still gonna stick with it but geeze, I really feel like a fool. I think that's my problem. But I do like the situp & stretching we do at the end of class on a mat. It always makes my abs burn with joy!

Anyway, tonight was one of those nights. But it was a little different too. I wore my heart rate monitor! I got to watch my heart rate go up and up. Unfortunately, during some of the moves, the strap was dropping lower on my chest and I could tell because my heart rate number kept going lower and lower; almost down to resting! But yet, I was still moving on the step. So throughout the hour, I kept tugging at my sports bra. I'm sure that looked classy in the mirror. I think I need to make the strap just a bit tighter, if I can. I just put it on as it came out of the box and it seemed to fit fine. Yesterday during my run I didn't have a problem with it.

But my calories are still not working on this thing. So I have to find out how to make it work, if I can. I haven't read this article yet but it seems like one I want to read to learn more about it.

I also would like to mention this. The President's Challenge. How many people remember the President Physical Fitness test in grade school or high school? Well, this is like that but only for adults (though kids can sign up as well). You get awards along the way and you can join groups and compare your progress against other people in the same fitness. You can even go back in time up to 14 days. So I put in my runs & aerobics. Kinda interesting. It's one more thing to remember to fill out but it might be fun to see what I can "get." (BTW, I don't remember running the mile in grade or high school. But I do remember doing the stretch test and the pullups in grade school.)

Tomorrow after work, I'm heading to Rockford again to try on my new Nike's. They came in this week. I can't wait!! I hope they work for me!

Categories: heart rate, YMCA classes

Heartbreak Hills

A nod to the infamous hill in Boston Marathon. Also related to what I did tonight!

I received my heart rate monitor in the mail yesterday. I put it on last night when I went to bed to pair it to my Garmin 405 and see if I could get it to work. I did eventually after finding out that the sensors needs to be wet. My resting heart rate was 54-56, pretty much what I measured at work a few weeks ago. Garmin automatically figured my max heart rate at 185 bpm but I don't think that's right for my age. I have to figure out which one of the many algorithms to follow.

So today, I was schedule to run a tempo run. Instead of doing that, I decided to hit the hill workout. I haven't done that since my half marathon training in 2007.

I put on the heart rate monitor in the locker room. It's difficult for women to wear one though because it's goes right where the bottom of the sports bra lays. I've seen versions where you can thread the monitor strap right though it and it will lay against your skin still. But tonight I managed to get it around my chest and have the bottom of it over the top and below the strap so it works.

My Garmin 405 picked up my heart rate and everything looked normal. I got on the treadmill and started my run. Just to refresh your memory, here's what I followed:
At zero incline, run for ten minutes at a comfortable pace. Set the incline to one percent and run at the same speed for a minute. Drop back to zero incline and run a minute.

Raise it to two percent for a minute, then down to zero for a minute. Next raise it to three percent, then down to one percent, then up to four percent, then down to two percent -- all for a minute each. Then go up to five percent and down to three percent.

Work your way back down from there: four, two, three, one, two, zero, one, zero. Finish with ten minutes of comfortable running at zero. Total running time: 38:00 (14:00 uphill).
***********************************************

I ran at 6.3 mph or 9:31 min/mi. What I didn't realise is that in order for me to be able to transfer this to the computer, I have to do a training start & stop. So after running for 2:30 I hit the start button. Whoops. And I had to manually hit the Lap button since I wasn't using the GPS function. I decided that at every minute, which signifies a change in incline, I'd hit it for a new lap.

I stuck to the 10 minute warm-up. And I started the hills. I'm not gonna lie. It was tough. It really got to me around incline 3%. And 4%. And 5%! HA! But I stuck with it. I looked at my heart rate every now & then. I got pretty good and hitting the button on my watch without looking at the watch. After running at 5%, 3% felt like a breeze! At 3%, 1% felt like downhill and I felt like I got faster. I was sweating up a storm. I'm now wondering if I should do that on every Wednesday or if I should just stick to every 3rd Wednesday and still do the tempo & speed work. Or maybe instead of just tempo as speed work will make me faster.

Here's my heart rate graph:


Unfortunately, my Garmin didn't figure out my calories. Maybe that's because I wasn't actually running anywhere and it had no incline or speed to base it off of. I'll have to look to see that's supposed to give me numbers with the GPS on.

It looks like I might be heading down to southern Illinois this weekend. I might be able to get in a run down there but I think I'd be too worried & nervous. Though it might help my stress levels. We'll see how it goes.

Categories: heart rate, on the up and up

Thum, thump. Thum, thump.

So I did in fact manage to go out to the YMCA and do my tempo run. .5 mi warm up in 5min, 3mi @ 8:57 pace in 26:53, .5mi cool in 5 min. I was supposed to do 1 mile warm up but I always feel like I waste my energy on them. At the end of the 3 mile tempo, I checked my pulse and it was 179. Wow, that's high.

Then tonight was another step class and we checked our pulses twice. 132 and 121. It was more difficult at the very beginning so I think I was stopping a lot more trying to follow the teacher. I almost got discouraged.

Afterwards, I went down to do the workout express circuit. Then I walked by another workout room and I saw the same teacher lady doing another step workout! She's crazy insane!!

But I've been thinking more and more of my heart rate lately. As I mentioned a few posts ago, I'm thinking of getting the Garmin Heart Rate strap. So I checked my heart rate numbers today.
Resting heart rate is 54. I did it twice just to make sure that it was that really low.
Max heart rate is 192.
LT (tempo run) should be at 85% of 192 = 172. So I was a bit on the higher side the other day.
Here's an Excel spreadsheet that you can plug in the numbers. (Let's hope it works)

Check it out and try it out. I hope the heart rate thing will help with Tempo Runs. Check out this blog for more information.

Categories: heart rate, YMCA classes