Slow but steady - week of 1/12/09

[OakLeaf]

Me slow too! My sprint intervals are some people's marathon pace.

Seven of 'em was feeling too easy, so this time I added two more, for a total of 9 x 1 minute with walking recovery. And lived to tell the tale, so I suppose that's still not enough. Anyway, it was my last interval day before the 5K on the 24th, so I'll have to wait until after then to add more.

Now, I have to decide whether to do a hometown 5K this Saturday as a tempo run.

[kelownagirl]

I ran with friends after work today. The roads were finally bare and wet, and I had to work hard to keep up with them after running so slowly for the past month or so. 5k in 32 minutes.

[Crankin]

No, I am slower than all of you! I ran on the treadmill again today. This time I decided to concentrate on more intervals of continuous running at a lower speed, rather than trying to get to my goal of a ten minute mile. I warmed up fully for 5 min. and then did 30 minutes, mostly at 5.2 and 5.5 mph, with some 5.8. But, I still had to take some rest, walking for a minute or two 3 times.
I stopped wearing my HR monitor for riding because I was paying more attention to it than riding; what I know about my HR is that it's always high compared to others, although my resting HR in the AM is 55. At the end of my run, I did a little sprint for 30 seconds and I used the HR monitor that's built in. I they they are notoriously unreliable, but my HR was 168. At my age, that means I should be dead! I felt stressed and working hard, but not gasping for breath. For a non trained person 80% of max at my age is about 134. That seems really low to me. When I ride, I would bet my HR is around 130-140, except when I'm climbing. It's kind of discouraging. After a five minute cool down, it was at 120 and I felt OK, but tired.

[OakLeaf]

Actually, a decent newer HRM is pretty darn accurate, aside from occasional spikes resulting from interference or poor contact. It's the predicted max HRs that don't apply to athletes (most of them will tell you so). Those charts or the 220 minutes your age formula are based on the general population in the USA, and you know how deconditioned many people are. All other things being equal, MHR will unavoidably decline by 1 BPM per year, but your max as a youngster wasn't necessarily so low.

You can derive a reasonably accurate MHR for running, by finding the HR at which an increase in speed doesn't increase your HR. You'll need to do it a few times on different days. But most people's MHR for cycling is likely 5-10 BPM lower than for running.

My Garmin does its own calculation and it says that my MHR for running is 192 - which would make me 21 years younger than I am in "real life" - although in real life I haven't seen anything higher than 188 recently, either. So I'm 32, I guess.

[Jolt]

Yeah, that "220-age" formula is basically crap!

[Crankin]

Thanks, Oakleaf. I know that the 220-minus your age is cr@p for someone like me. So, if your predicted MHR is 190 with your Garmin, then I am doing OK. I was not using my own monitor, just the thing on the treadmill where you hold your hands. I think my max is probably somewhere around 180 for running and 170 for cycling. Will try to experiment a little. There's nothing wrong with the Polar model I have, I just got too focused on it, instead of enjoying my ride.

[Jolt]

20 minutes on the treadmill at the Y today (again paying close attention to form, which along with the fact that the treadmill is boring made it feel ten times harder), not one twinge. Making progress! I'd better just ease back into it and keep working on glute strength/activation and stretching the TFL. I definitely feel the coordination is not as good on the left side (the one that had the problem) as the right, as far as the glutes working when they are supposed to and the TFL not trying to pick up the slack. Anyone have any other tips for fixing that or ideas of how long it takes?