Catching up..

Tuesday, Aug 20th
70 degrees,  69% humidity
What a mish-mash of training this morning. I think I think too much. Wait. I KNOW I think too much. And this carries over into just about everything I do. Like this morning's training. I could not decide on a plan, so I did a little bit of everything. However, I don't think that's efficient.

While researching maximum heart rate formulas and training via HR, I did come across finding your max rate through actually running to find it. But I blew it off because, well, it would be so uncomfortable to do. It took another fellow blogger to reiterate just how logical it is to determine your rate by how high you can go. We are all biologically the same yet different, after all.

So, out to the track I went - walked once around the track, started up the Magellan, did a warm up mile, although, not really a warm up, I just got faster with each lap around - until I realized I was running out of steam before the last 200 meters where I'd need to go all out. I pooped out, walked for about 50 meters, and then started up again, trying to finish the mile as fast as I could.
I think I got my heart rate up to 182-185. And it was not pretty. I felt my legs and arms flailing all over the place, no control. I hope I provided at least a little bit of entertainment for the 5 or 6 other people walking around the track.

So, then I decided to reward myself with trying to keep my heart rate under 140 as I ran. Ummm.. no. That did not go over well. I found myself walking too much trying to control it after getting it up to cardiac-bursting level.

So, hey. How about doing 100's? I really LIKE doing them. And this time, I figured out that I have a LAP button on Runmeter. Let's see if that does what I think it should do. So, coming up to the 100 meter line, I hit lap, and started running. I tried to remember that I needed to increase my speed over the distance, and not to start out sprinting. That's how I tore up my quads last year. It turns out the LAP button did what I thought it would do. I averaged 22 seconds running 100 meters out of 5 attempts. That's about a 6:02 pace. I would have done more, but then tapping through the iphone case wasn't consistent, and I was smacking the stupid thing and the laps were going onandoffandonandoff.. ugh. Then I just jogged once around the track, stretched, and went home.
Totally not organized at all.

I've learned that my max HR is about 185. That's not too far off from the 178 I calculated using that formula that took into account the fact that I'm a 53 year old female.

I'm thinking next time I'll do 200's and see if I can run under 50 secs for that distance. And in all this testing and research into my capabilities,  it will be disguised as training.

Runmeter Data
Magellan Data I'm thinking about not using this anymore - Runmeter is much easier for me to read.



Thursday, Aug 22nd
75 degrees, 87% humidity, Dewpoint 70%
I knew I needed to start adding mileage, not only for the 10k coming up, but for my first half marathon in October. 
It was rough right out of the driveway, the humidity hit me like a ton of bricks. I didn't think I was hydrated enough. I've been craving salt the last few days, which is not like me- I'm usually trying to fend off filling my maw with sugar.
During the first mile I realized that if I didn't start feeling better by the end of it (the first mile ends in a long, slow decline) that it was going to take all the will I had to complete the six miles. Sure enough, even that declining road did not bolster my pace or improve the way my legs felt or the way my heart was pleading with me to give it a break.
My right ankle started bothering me, then I felt the entire right leg get heavy and cumbersome.

Somewhere before mile 3 I lost the bluetooth signal to my new heartrate monitor. Then I lost the signal to my headset. But it could have been the other way around. Frustrated, I slowed down to a walk and tried to reset everything from my phone, shutting down bluetooth and turning every thing back on. I would say that probably took about 4 minutes. But, in that 4 or 5 minute walk, things started to turn around. My wind returned, my leg felt warm, as if circulation was returning to it. I started off running at a 9:30 right away, and for the first time, I felt myself smile. I should force a smile more often - because it stops me from scowling when I run. From then on, I think I needed to slow down and walk a few more times, just to drink my electolytes - but I was happy I stuck with it. Not so happy with my time, but I can blame the humidity on that. (Why not?)
I'm glad I got the miles in.

I'm working again Saturday morning, so I might go out for a bike ride after work, and try to run by the water somewhere on Sunday.

Runmeter Data