I gained a lot of respect this week for single parents who find time to exercise. My wife was out of town all week for work and I wasn't able to find time to exercise on Wednesday or Thursday. She got home on Friday night shortly after my parents arrived for a weekend visit, so I didn't work out on Friday either. I don't know how single parents do it, but those who do are amazing.
The exercise I did do this week went great though. I biked just over 23 miles and ran just over 7 miles. Today's run was 5 miles on the treadmill and it went very well. With about 9 minutes of walking I ran for the other 50 minutes and finished in 59:09, just a few minutes over my goal of 55:45. I'm officially back to the condition I was in back in September, so the improvements are coming quickly. Now I'll be moving into uncharted territory with long runs of over 5 miles on the training schedule.
The fun part of today's run had to do with the heart rate monitor I bought on Friday. Yes, I did it! I took the plunge and bought a Polar RS200sd at the local REI co-op. I like the little bit of HR information the indoor bike and treadmill give me so I figured it will be nice to have HR information when I start doing my workouts outside.
During my run today, I found that I felt best right around 160 BPM which I was at for most of the 2nd mile. Once I got over 170 I really started feeling fatigued. My average HR for today's run was 158 which was a little higher than I wanted. I would prefer to have my average between 145-155 for my runs right now, and will be working on that. My "max" HR is 182, and in the 4th mile I ran for about 2 minutes at 186 which felt great but exhausted me quickly. This heart rate analysis stuff is very new to me, so I'll be spending some time over the next few weeks learning how to use the information I'm collecting with the HRM.
My wife's back now, so I should be able to get all my workouts in this week. I'll be running 13 miles and biking about 43 miles this week. There's a little change in the training plan for the 2nd run this week too, as it is listed as a "tempo run". It says I'll be running 5 miles with a 1 mile warmup, 3 miles at 9:26, and a 1 mile cool down. That could be a tough run since I've been running around an 11:00 pace so far whenever I'm not walking.
3 days ago
2 comments:
Heym Bro...Who's the Bankerguy? A friend of yours? Read his blog and it will be fun to follow him through his journey.
Sounds like your training is going very well. I think we are now on the same "weekly plan" from the training schedule. I started a few weeks early so I just doubled up a few of the weekly plans. 2-5-6 this week... I've never run over 5 so it should prove to be interesting!!! I'll checkbackin with you soon.
Bankerguy is from a message board I visit a lot. He hasn't been posting, so maybe he's given up?
Yes, we must be on the same schedule. I have a link to mine if you want to check it. The 5 miler tomorrow could be tough with a 3 mile tempo run under 10:00 miles. I doubt I'll be able to keep up the pace, but the miles are getting easier at least. 6 miles on Sunday will be tough, though.
Gotta keep hangin' in there. Can't wait to get outside and run sometime soon!
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