Week 11 Recap / Heart Rate Training

After having the death flu for a week I'm not even going to mention anything concerning training from 2/10-2/17. My immune system couldn't have taken any abuse that week. But I am finally feeling better and plan to resume serious training on 2/25.

So this leaves us with this past week, which I'll call Week 11. Since I was still coughing up strange things when elevating my breathing I decided to keep all my workouts indoors. When I was in high school I had a similar illness and had to run indoors at the YMCA's 25 meter walking track for two weeks. It was pretty ridiculous. Lucky for me they've invented the elliptical machine since then (I don’t care much for the treadmill). I find it’s great for getting the legs moving and the heart rate into the desired range. For me, that range is 140-150 BPM for an easy “run” workout.

There’s not much to report about my adventures with the elliptical machine so I’ll take a moment to talk about how I use my heart rate to train. I’m not a doctor and I didn’t stay at a Holiday Inn last night. Take this information for what it is; just some random triathlete sharing how he approaches training.

First off it’s important to know what my resting heart rate is. I found this out by laying in bed a few minutes after waking up and then, while still lying down, counted my beats for a minute using my alarm clock. I’ve got a near death RHR of 43 BPM. Once my resting rate is known I needed a maximum rate for cycling and running. The two are not the same. The best way to figure out my MHR was to perform several maximum effort intervals. I was sure to warm-up good to lessen the chances of injury. By the final interval of five I was peaking. I won’t lie, finding my MHR was hell. Another less accurate method is to use this generally accepted formula:

MHR = 205.8 - (0.685 * age)

When I use the formula my MHR is calculated as 185. This is off a slight bit from my MHR (from intervals) of 190 and 184 for running and cycling respectively. Heart rates are a function of genetics and age so there is a ton of variability. That’s why I put myself through the ringer to get my MHRs.

Once RHR and MHR was known I created an exercise zone chart by percentage. The math is simple.

(MHR – RHR) * (%) + RHR

For each percentage (50 to 100) I calculated my target heart rate, shown here:

I use Zone 1 mainly for a warm up. Sometimes my warm up creeps into Zone 2 because I’m impatient. But for the most part Zone 2 is an easy/recovery day effort. Zone 3 takes up the majority of my time because it’s great for endurance building. I’ll typically do 8+ mile runs and 40+ mile rides in this area. Zone 4 and 5 are my interval zones. I’ve found it difficult to keep my HR monitor on during run intervals so I go by feeling. When the lactic acid burn begins to rear its ugly head I know I’m pushing myself to the right level. Cycling is a different story, but when I’m going that fast I don’t feel comfortable looking down at my watch. Again, I have to go by feel.

There are other ways to monitor the amount of work I’m performing (such as a power meter on a bike) so I’m not cheating myself or wasting time. Though I find the HR method is not only easy to understand but to use. It’s also nice when the weather sucks or illness strikes and I can hit up the gym to get a good workout at the right intensity.

Week 10 Recap

In Week 4 I performed my first good hill workout on a 1/2 mile stretch I've found in Yorktown, VA. In my blog I described running those intervals in "adequate times." This was two months ago. Until Week 10 I had been unable to make it out to the location due to the lack of sunlight after work. As you'll soon see my return was a triumphant one.

On Tuesday I was standing at the bottom of the hill, all warmed up, properly stretched, and mentally prepared to kick my own ass. Then I began to wonder what type of times I ran last December. Nothing came to mind so I decided to challenge myself but not over do it on the first repeat. 3:09. I thought not bad, but had to have been slower than before. 3:08. "Okay so maybe this is all I've got in the tank today." 2:59. "Whew, where did that one come from?" 2:55, 2:55. "Wow, it's time to cool down." I was losing sunlight quickly and I didn't feel like getting hit by a car.

The next day I added the data to my workout journal and noticed my previous efforts of 3:26, 3:21, 3:15, 3:37. All I can say is I must be doing something right to drop, on average, 0:26 off a split.

The rest of the week was going well until I felt sick on Saturday. I played the full 90 minutes of a soccer game and then immediately afterwards ran the trail for 7 miles. I had to force myself to run the last 2 miles. The whole time I contemplated how much fitness I was gaining from a meager 2 miles more and if it was worth it. After the run I ate lunch as planned and thought I could sleep my way through an easy 2500 yard swim. I had a headache and my back was aching a bit so I figured I’d take a nap and stretch some before the swim. Once my body hit the couch training was over.

Sunday's soccer game was out of the question, along with the remaining training I had planned. My body ached from head to toe. My chest and stomach hurt from coughing. A trip to the doctor’s office on Monday revealed I had the flu and bronchitis. I had felt miserable since Saturday afternoon and had continued to feel so until last night. I’ve probably only been awake 16 hours in the past five days. Thank codeine. I won’t be working out till next Monday so Week 11 training is a complete bust. I've also decided to cancel my adventures in Hal Higdon's marathon plan for some much needed time on my bike trainer.

Even with a reduced amount of training I put 6 hours in over 6800 yards swimming, 9 miles biking, and 22 miles of running.

Garmin Forerunner 205

For the last month and a half I’ve been using the Garmin Forerunner 205 GPS receiver watch on all of my easy and long runs. At first I borrowed it from a friend for the trip to Europe. Once I got back she stated she wasn’t using it due to her pregnancy and that I could try it out on a few local commonly used run/walk courses. Both of us had been curious to see how the watch faired against a specific course in particular, that being the 5-mile loop of the Noland Trail in Newport News, VA.

The course is a packed dirt and sand trail that winds along Lake Maury. Along the way the trail includes fourteen bridges, scenic lookouts, benches, water fowl, a million squirrels, turtles sunning, and importantly 1/2-mile markers. The trail is heavily wooded and has some relief but nothing I consider challenging. I’m guessing the largest “hill” has an elevation of +25 feet. However a few locations could be considered steep, especially if you do all your running in southeast Virginia.

After two measured runs on the Noland Trail the GPS unit indicated the course to be approximately 0.2 miles shorter than published. If you’re running a 10 min/mile pace this means you’d need to run an extra two minutes on the course to get your distance in. I believe 0.2 miles is a substantial difference if you want to gauge future performances off trail times using the existing markers.

I wondered where the mileage discrepancy occurred so I began to keep a lap count for each 1/2-mile. This is when the watch began to give some oddball answers. Over two consecutive sunny days this winter (no leaves on the trees) I ran 18 miles combined on the trail. By doing so I was able to record at least three pieces of data for each segment of the trail. The results showed 9 of 10 markers to be shorter than 0.5 miles. I averaged each segment length and summed the total distance, which was surprisingly 4.6 miles, not 4.8 as previously measured on continuous runs. The fact that the data points for each segment showed a variation of approximately 0.05 miles was troubling. If you’re running a 10 min/mile pace that’s a difference of 30 seconds per half mile.

The point I’m getting at is that the Garmin Forerunner 205 is not as accurate as most people would like, at least not on the Noland Trail. I am concerned it is difficult to consistently replicate a distance over a known course with this watch. Yet I do believe it is a useful tool for 1/2 marathon and up training.

What the watch is good for is letting you get a decent idea of how far you've run on easy and long run days. It would appear that the discrepancies even themselves out over larger distances. With a tool like this you can run aimlessly through town, into a park, and down a street you’ve never been on.

I think one feature that could be removed from the watch is the pace function. It consistently indicates I'm running 2-3 minutes per mile slower than I end up running for the whole workout. It has never been a reliable source for pace information. You can only deduct that information from the watch by looking at lap times on key intervals and multiplying in your head. But even that's not accurate because the mileage can easily be off 0.1 or 0.2 miles. But it’s something, which in some cases is better than nothing.

Week 9 Recap

With each recent passing week becoming a personal best in terms of mileage I welcomed Week 9, a recovery week. I'm sad to report that all the running has begun to burn me out a little.

I took Tuesday off of work for a me day, which was very nice indeed. I slept in late, made a big breakfast, napped, and then set off to get some training done. Six Yasso 800s and 2500 yards at the pool were on the schedule. Since I was ahead of my usual after work training hours I was not a bit surprised to see the local university holding track practice. I proceeded to stretch and scan the competition. Eventually I asked the coach if he minded me jumping in for some repeats. The athletes were running what appeared to be race-pace efforts of varying distances (2-3 miles) so I felt I wouldn't disturb them much. Coach didn't mind at all. By my fifth 800m (5:40/mile pace) I had gathered a bit of attention from the students, one whom asked if I was interesting in running track. For fear of getting runoff, not being a student and all, I politely told him I'm a triathlete and kept running. Makes me wonder if I have any eligibility left...

My swimming volume took a big hit this week because it's little kid swim lesson season. A swarm of children will infest the pool for several hours at a time over the next month and a half. I don't necessarily mind having to wade through kids in the locker room or on the pool deck. What I do mind is the countless times I've had to clear the pool for turds and vomit. Tuesday was one of those days.

The rest of the week was rather dull in comparison. I finished up with a total of 5550 yards swimming, 5.2 miles biking, and 31 miles running in 6 1/2 hours. I was hoping my legs would rebound with the reduced amount of mileage but they haven’t felt right all week. I’ve got maybe four good weeks of training till the Smithfield Sprint so I may shift my focus away from the marathon plan and into biking.