I ran two miles tonight with my HRM and a goal to keep my heart rate under 149 again. I was getting pretty high readings right away again, but I made sure the sensors where wet and then everything seemed to be fine. I really struggled to keep my heart rate down though. It's so hard for me to run 11.30 miles. A couple of times I had to walk to get my heart rate down to where it should be. The thing is I'm pretty sure I actually sped up once I started walking. So I'm going to stop worrying about my heart rate until after my next two races (3k on 6/9 and a 5k on 6/24). I'll be sure to do my easy runs easy but I'll at least feel like I ran once I'm done.
I'm not giving up on low heart rate training all together though, just until I'm done with my races. I really like everything that I've read about it and feel like it is the right way to do things. So after the races I'll watch my heart rate again as I work on building my aerobic base (more on that very soon).
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Catching Up
I had a very nice weekend out at Amy's grandparents. We just helped them out around the farm and relaxed. I haven't posted about my runs lately so to get caught up here is a summary of my last few runs.
Thursday - May 24th
I ran my second run with my HRM. I went 1.5 miles with the goal of keeping my heart rate under 149 (70% of my max according to the 220-age formula). My watch started beeping at me after just a few steps, I checked it and it said I was at 183. I knew there was know way that was right so I kept going, but it kept beeping. I stopped and walked and it went down to about 115 right away. But as soon as I started jogging again it jumped up to over 200, I just keep going and it kept going up. I think the highest it got to was 232. I walked for awhile again and it dropped pretty much right away. When I started jogging again it stayed about where I expected it to. The whole way back it was fine. The only thing I can think that it might have been is that my HRM didn't have a good connection, but once I started sweating a little the connection was better. Anyway, it was a lot easier for me to keep my heart rate under my target on the road than it was on the treadmill, well once it quit acting up anyway.
Friday - May 25th
No run, I just rode in the car for about 6 hours.
Saturday - May 26th
I ran a 2 mile fartlek on the country roads. I used the nifty interval feature on my watch. I ran easy for 3 minutes then hard for one. I'd say I went ran at about 90% for the hard parts. I couldn't quite to it for the whole minute for the last one though. The whole run took 18.22 and my heart rate averaged 163.
Sunday - May 26th
Repeat of Friday.
Yesterday - May 27th
We went out to Yanney park and did a 3.5 mile long run. I look forward to my long runs because it is really nice to run out there. It was an out and back run again. My target heart rate for the run was 149 again, I'm going to keep using that for the next few weeks for all my easy or long runs. On the way out I tried to keep my heart rate under 140 so I had a little room to work with on the way back. I did a pretty good job of that. I turned around in 19.17. My heart rate crept up on the way back but I only went over 149 twice for a total of 30 seconds. My final time was 40.09, or 11.29 per mile. It's hard for me to run that slow but as my aerobic base gets built (more on that later) my times will come down, or at least that's what I've read.
Today
I took the day off from work and I was pretty much just a bum all day but I plan on doing some yoga later tonight. My MP3 player came today and I went out picked up a new pair of headphones, a couple technical shirts and a pair of shorts (adding another $60 that I've wasted on stuff for running). I've been spending a lot of time trying to figure out my plans after the races I have coming up in June. I think I got it all figured out today, but I'm going to leave you in suspense...
Thursday - May 24th
I ran my second run with my HRM. I went 1.5 miles with the goal of keeping my heart rate under 149 (70% of my max according to the 220-age formula). My watch started beeping at me after just a few steps, I checked it and it said I was at 183. I knew there was know way that was right so I kept going, but it kept beeping. I stopped and walked and it went down to about 115 right away. But as soon as I started jogging again it jumped up to over 200, I just keep going and it kept going up. I think the highest it got to was 232. I walked for awhile again and it dropped pretty much right away. When I started jogging again it stayed about where I expected it to. The whole way back it was fine. The only thing I can think that it might have been is that my HRM didn't have a good connection, but once I started sweating a little the connection was better. Anyway, it was a lot easier for me to keep my heart rate under my target on the road than it was on the treadmill, well once it quit acting up anyway.
Friday - May 25th
No run, I just rode in the car for about 6 hours.
Saturday - May 26th
I ran a 2 mile fartlek on the country roads. I used the nifty interval feature on my watch. I ran easy for 3 minutes then hard for one. I'd say I went ran at about 90% for the hard parts. I couldn't quite to it for the whole minute for the last one though. The whole run took 18.22 and my heart rate averaged 163.
Sunday - May 26th
Repeat of Friday.
Yesterday - May 27th
We went out to Yanney park and did a 3.5 mile long run. I look forward to my long runs because it is really nice to run out there. It was an out and back run again. My target heart rate for the run was 149 again, I'm going to keep using that for the next few weeks for all my easy or long runs. On the way out I tried to keep my heart rate under 140 so I had a little room to work with on the way back. I did a pretty good job of that. I turned around in 19.17. My heart rate crept up on the way back but I only went over 149 twice for a total of 30 seconds. My final time was 40.09, or 11.29 per mile. It's hard for me to run that slow but as my aerobic base gets built (more on that later) my times will come down, or at least that's what I've read.
Today
I took the day off from work and I was pretty much just a bum all day but I plan on doing some yoga later tonight. My MP3 player came today and I went out picked up a new pair of headphones, a couple technical shirts and a pair of shorts (adding another $60 that I've wasted on stuff for running). I've been spending a lot of time trying to figure out my plans after the races I have coming up in June. I think I got it all figured out today, but I'm going to leave you in suspense...
Friday, May 25, 2007
Memorial Day Weekend
We are heading out of town to go visit Amy's grandparents near Hemingford, NE. They don't have internet out there so I won't be posting for a few days. I have two runs planned when we're out there, a 2 mile fartlek and a 3.5 mile run. I'll also be sure to wear sunscreen when I'm working out there this weekend.
I hope everyone has an enjoyable and safe memorial day.
I hope everyone has an enjoyable and safe memorial day.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Yoga
A few months back Amy and I used to do yoga on a somewhat regular basis. I don't know anything about yoga other than what is on the DVDs that we have so I'm sure I'm did all kinds of things wrong, but I enjoyed doing it. I never did improve my flexability much, but my posture did improve (and there is tons of room for improvement) and I felt better about myself. Those effects wore off since I stopped doing the yoga though. Since I'm trying to improve my general well-being I've been wanting to start doing it again. Since I didn't feel like just sitting around tonight I figured tonight would be a good night to start.
So I got out our MTV Yoga DVD and went through about half of it. It's kind of weird how it wears you out just stretching and doing different poses. When we first started before I couldn't get through the whole thing either, but after a short while I could. So I figure I'll be able to get through the whole thing if I do it once a week in a month or two.
Here are a few articles I've read on yoga and running.
Yoga for Runners on Run The Planet
Yoga for Runners on Yoga Journal
Flex Time on Runner's World
If you have any recommendations on websites, DVDs, books or anything else on yoga and running share them in the comments.
So I got out our MTV Yoga DVD and went through about half of it. It's kind of weird how it wears you out just stretching and doing different poses. When we first started before I couldn't get through the whole thing either, but after a short while I could. So I figure I'll be able to get through the whole thing if I do it once a week in a month or two.
DVD and went through about half of it. It's kind of weird how it wears you out just stretching and doing different poses. When we first started before I couldn't get through the whole thing either, but after a short while I could. So I figure I'll be able to get through the whole thing if I do it once a week in a month or two.Here are a few articles I've read on yoga and running.
Yoga for Runners on Run The Planet
Yoga for Runners on Yoga Journal
Flex Time on Runner's World
If you have any recommendations on websites, DVDs, books or anything else on yoga and running share them in the comments.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
1st Easy Run with my HRM
On schedule for tonight was a 1.5 mile easy run. After getting my heart rate monitor and trying to find my max heart rate yesterday I was anxious to see how an easy run would go. For easy runs I'm supposed to keep my heart rate under 70% of my working hear rate which comes out to 144 beats per minute. It was raining out tonight and the Spurs game was on so I ran in the clubhouse on the treadmill.
In the past I've been doing my easy runs at about a 9 min/mile pace, 6.6 mph, and that has felt really easy to me. So that's what I started out with tonight. After running for a couple minutes my watch was beeping at me for going too hard. So I slowed the pace down to 6 mph and rate at that speed for a few more minutes before my watch started beeping at me again. So I slowed down even more. After running about a mile I finally just stopped to let my heart rate go down for awhile because I had dropped the pace down to about 4.5 mph, and I can walk that fast if I try a tiny bit. After the rest I ran the last half mile at about 4.8 mph, but I still pushing 70%. I don't even feel like I ran at all tonight, but I suppose that might be the point.
Tonight's run makes me feel even more certain I didn't get up to my max heart rate last night. If I would have used the highest number from the formulas I only would have had an extra 7 beats per minute to work with. I'm thinking about running an extra 1.5 this week at that pace just to see how it feels. I don't think it will hurt anything to stray from my program by adding an extra easy run. What do you think? Will it hurt anything if I add in an extra 1.5 miles this week? Should I go with the max heart rate from one of the formulas or the use the max I calculated?
In the past I've been doing my easy runs at about a 9 min/mile pace, 6.6 mph, and that has felt really easy to me. So that's what I started out with tonight. After running for a couple minutes my watch was beeping at me for going too hard. So I slowed the pace down to 6 mph and rate at that speed for a few more minutes before my watch started beeping at me again. So I slowed down even more. After running about a mile I finally just stopped to let my heart rate go down for awhile because I had dropped the pace down to about 4.5 mph, and I can walk that fast if I try a tiny bit. After the rest I ran the last half mile at about 4.8 mph, but I still pushing 70%. I don't even feel like I ran at all tonight, but I suppose that might be the point.
Tonight's run makes me feel even more certain I didn't get up to my max heart rate last night. If I would have used the highest number from the formulas I only would have had an extra 7 beats per minute to work with. I'm thinking about running an extra 1.5 this week at that pace just to see how it feels. I don't think it will hurt anything to stray from my program by adding an extra easy run. What do you think? Will it hurt anything if I add in an extra 1.5 miles this week? Should I go with the max heart rate from one of the formulas or the use the max I calculated?
Heart Rate Monitor
My heart rate monitor came today. So instead of doing the 1.5 mile fast run that was scheduled I tried to find my max heart rate(MHR). I found a couple of sites with different methods on how to find it. There are a lot of different ways to just calculate it based on your age. Here are a few that I came across.
220-age=MHR
205-(.5*age)=MHR
210-(.7*age)=MHR
I'm 25 so these calculations come out to 195, 192, 192 respectfully. Obviously these calculations are very general. I did some research and come up with a couple different methods to determine your MHR by doing stress tests on a treadmill. I found a couple other methods that don't involve a treadmill that I'll probably try out later too. But I think it would be easier to use a treadmill, so that's what I did.
One method is after a good warm-up to run as fast as you can for three minutes, rest for two or three minutes, then run for another three minutes at your max pace. During the second three minute run you should hit your MHR. As I found out it's hard to pick the perfect pace for this. As I tend to do I made my pace too fast, which meant I didn't get to my max heart rate because my legs where too tired and I completely died. Amy watched my watch for me and came up with a MHR of 180. I think it would be pretty easy to pick too slow of a pace also.
I was pretty tired so I just sat down and watched the Cavs/Pistons game for awhile. After a quite few minutes I felt pretty good so I decided to give it another go. This time I used method number two. I modified it though, because I didn't remember how it was supposed to go exactly. I started walking at 3 mph with the incline on the treadmill at 1. Every minute I increased the incline by one and every other minute I increased the mph by one. I kept that up for about 10 minutes before I couldn't go any longer. That got my heart rate up to 184. After reading how I was actually supposed to do it I bet I can get it higher than that. So that will probably be my next hard workout.
Overall I wound up running about three miles tonight trying to figure this out, instead of the 1.5 I was supposed to run. But a little over a mile was a warm-up and then there were the easy parts of the first method and the first half of the second method was pretty easy. So I'm say I ran less than 1.5 miles hard but I feel like I got in a pretty good workout.
I calculated my resting heart rate (RHR) as well. This one was a little easier, I just put the HRM on after I got home from work (not the ideal time to find your RHR but you have to play with a new toy once you get it right?) and the lowest heart I hit was 54. Like my max I'll use that until I can prove that it is something else. I'll try and get into the habit of taking my heart rate every morning to see what I come up with.
Why do I care about my max and resting heart rates you might ask? Well when I run I either want to run hard or I want to run easy. There isn't much benefit to running in the middle. When I run easy I want to ensure that my heart rate stays below 70% of my working heart rate. For hard runs I want it around 85%. The following equation is how you can determine your working heart rate.
((MHR-RHR)*intesity%)+RHR=Target Heart Rate
Well I think that's enough info for tonight. After I get a chance to play with all the features on my new watch I'll give a full review on it. I'll continue to write posts about training with a heart rate monitor as I learn more about that too. If you know of any good sources for more information (books, web sites, old guy down the street, etc.) I'd love to read about them in the comments.
220-age=MHR
205-(.5*age)=MHR
210-(.7*age)=MHR
I'm 25 so these calculations come out to 195, 192, 192 respectfully. Obviously these calculations are very general. I did some research and come up with a couple different methods to determine your MHR by doing stress tests on a treadmill. I found a couple other methods that don't involve a treadmill that I'll probably try out later too. But I think it would be easier to use a treadmill, so that's what I did.
One method is after a good warm-up to run as fast as you can for three minutes, rest for two or three minutes, then run for another three minutes at your max pace. During the second three minute run you should hit your MHR. As I found out it's hard to pick the perfect pace for this. As I tend to do I made my pace too fast, which meant I didn't get to my max heart rate because my legs where too tired and I completely died. Amy watched my watch for me and came up with a MHR of 180. I think it would be pretty easy to pick too slow of a pace also.
I was pretty tired so I just sat down and watched the Cavs/Pistons game for awhile. After a quite few minutes I felt pretty good so I decided to give it another go. This time I used method number two. I modified it though, because I didn't remember how it was supposed to go exactly. I started walking at 3 mph with the incline on the treadmill at 1. Every minute I increased the incline by one and every other minute I increased the mph by one. I kept that up for about 10 minutes before I couldn't go any longer. That got my heart rate up to 184. After reading how I was actually supposed to do it I bet I can get it higher than that. So that will probably be my next hard workout.
Overall I wound up running about three miles tonight trying to figure this out, instead of the 1.5 I was supposed to run. But a little over a mile was a warm-up and then there were the easy parts of the first method and the first half of the second method was pretty easy. So I'm say I ran less than 1.5 miles hard but I feel like I got in a pretty good workout.
I calculated my resting heart rate (RHR) as well. This one was a little easier, I just put the HRM on after I got home from work (not the ideal time to find your RHR but you have to play with a new toy once you get it right?) and the lowest heart I hit was 54. Like my max I'll use that until I can prove that it is something else. I'll try and get into the habit of taking my heart rate every morning to see what I come up with.
Why do I care about my max and resting heart rates you might ask? Well when I run I either want to run hard or I want to run easy. There isn't much benefit to running in the middle. When I run easy I want to ensure that my heart rate stays below 70% of my working heart rate. For hard runs I want it around 85%. The following equation is how you can determine your working heart rate.
((MHR-RHR)*intesity%)+RHR=Target Heart Rate
Well I think that's enough info for tonight. After I get a chance to play with all the features on my new watch I'll give a full review on it. I'll continue to write posts about training with a heart rate monitor as I learn more about that too. If you know of any good sources for more information (books, web sites, old guy down the street, etc.) I'd love to read about them in the comments.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
3 Mile Milestone
I ran 3 miles tonight for the first time since I ran the 5k that got me back into this whole running thing about 6 weeks ago and it'd been a long time before that (probably not since high school and I graduated in 2000). It's not really that big of a milestone but it something I've been working slowly towards for the last month. I hope that each milestone I reach is as easy to get to as this one was.
We went out to Yanni park and ran an out and back route along the trail there. It was a really nice run. The trail runs along the creek that is out there and it really flat. I'll probably end up doing quite a few of my long runs out there. I took it easy and ran a time of 28.34. I turned around right at 15 minutes so I pushed a little bit harder on the way back, but still keep it pretty slow.
Today's run was the first one of week 5 of my training program. That means that I'm halfway done with it. So far I've only missed one run, and that was during the first week. So I'm pretty happy with myself for sticking with the plan. I'm starting to almost feel like a runner.
We went out to Yanni park and ran an out and back route along the trail there. It was a really nice run. The trail runs along the creek that is out there and it really flat. I'll probably end up doing quite a few of my long runs out there. I took it easy and ran a time of 28.34. I turned around right at 15 minutes so I pushed a little bit harder on the way back, but still keep it pretty slow.
Today's run was the first one of week 5 of my training program. That means that I'm halfway done with it. So far I've only missed one run, and that was during the first week. So I'm pretty happy with myself for sticking with the plan. I'm starting to almost feel like a runner.
Friday, May 18, 2007
Spending Money
Sorry I haven't been posting the last few days. I've been installing and setting up Ubuntu Linux on my laptop. I think I got most everything setup how I want it with the exception of a few little bugs.
To follow-up my post about how running is the most cost effective activity I'm going to tell you about all the money that I spent this week. As you know from a previous post I bought two pair of socks Monday for about $16.00. That was just the start of things.
On Tuesday I bought a light so I can see when I run in the middle of the night for $10.00 from Wally World. It's not one of those miner's headlamps (sorry Annie), it clips on the bill of a hat (so it still looks a little goofy). I think it will work pretty good for what I need it for. I have a few different hats, but none that I would want to run in for too long. So on my way home from work on Wednesday I stopped by a couple sporting good stores at the mall, but no one had a technical hat. (Here is a good little article from Runner's World that defines what technical clothing is.) I stopped in Target looking for a couple other things and was surprised to see that they have quite a bit of technical clothing, including hats. So I picked one up for about $13.
As I indicated in a previous post I've been looking for a heart rate monitor. I did a little bit of research and I've chosen the Nike C8. I ordered it today and I should get it Tuesday or Wednesday, there went another $90. I'll definitely be writing more about this later.
But wait there's more!! I complained in the past that I've been borrowing Amy's iPod Shuffle when I want to listen to music on my runs. Well, I won't have to do that too much longer. I ordered a Zen Stone and an arm band to go with it today as well. It will be 6 to 10 business days until I get those. Adding that $60 brings my grand total for the week to right around $190. I'll put up a review of this sometime as well.
Oh yeah, Amy and I paid our entry fees for our next race, the Havelock Charity Run, too, another $28.
So it ended up being a pretty expensive week. But I'm confident in the quality of pretty much everything I bought (except maybe the light from Wal-Mart) and they should last me quite a while. I still have a number of things on my list that I "need" to get, but those will have to wait until I win some more at the poker tables.
As for the running side of things everything has been going good. I'm just doing easy runs this week and my weekly total will be 7 miles after I run 2 miles later tonight.
To follow-up my post about how running is the most cost effective activity I'm going to tell you about all the money that I spent this week. As you know from a previous post I bought two pair of socks Monday for about $16.00. That was just the start of things.
On Tuesday I bought a light so I can see when I run in the middle of the night for $10.00 from Wally World. It's not one of those miner's headlamps (sorry Annie), it clips on the bill of a hat (so it still looks a little goofy). I think it will work pretty good for what I need it for. I have a few different hats, but none that I would want to run in for too long. So on my way home from work on Wednesday I stopped by a couple sporting good stores at the mall, but no one had a technical hat. (Here is a good little article from Runner's World that defines what technical clothing is.) I stopped in Target looking for a couple other things and was surprised to see that they have quite a bit of technical clothing, including hats. So I picked one up for about $13.
As I indicated in a previous post I've been looking for a heart rate monitor. I did a little bit of research and I've chosen the Nike C8. I ordered it today and I should get it Tuesday or Wednesday, there went another $90. I'll definitely be writing more about this later.
. I ordered it today and I should get it Tuesday or Wednesday, there went another $90. I'll definitely be writing more about this later.But wait there's more!! I complained in the past that I've been borrowing Amy's iPod Shuffle when I want to listen to music on my runs. Well, I won't have to do that too much longer. I ordered a Zen Stone and an arm band to go with it today as well. It will be 6 to 10 business days until I get those. Adding that $60 brings my grand total for the week to right around $190. I'll put up a review of this sometime as well.
and an Oh yeah, Amy and I paid our entry fees for our next race, the Havelock Charity Run, too, another $28.
So it ended up being a pretty expensive week. But I'm confident in the quality of pretty much everything I bought (except maybe the light from Wal-Mart) and they should last me quite a while. I still have a number of things on my list that I "need" to get, but those will have to wait until I win some more at the poker tables.
As for the running side of things everything has been going good. I'm just doing easy runs this week and my weekly total will be 7 miles after I run 2 miles later tonight.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Best Burn for the Buck
I just got the June 2007 issue of Money magazine and it has a short article on how many calories different activities burn per dollar. Running comes out way ahead of the other activities by burning 1100 calories per dollar. Second place is In-Line Skating which burns 625. They assume that the only money spent on running is $80 for shoes. You can check out the article on page 23.
Monday, May 14, 2007
The Sun Is Not Your Friend
Well I had a very nice weekend. I got to spend lots of quality time with family. It turned out that having the concert canceled wasn't all that bad.
I spent all day Saturday at my Grandma's farm helping plant rocks and flowers, chase chickens around and various other little things. I'd planned on getting my run (2 mile fartlek) in out there on the dirt roads. We got out there around 11 so I wanted to wait a while until it cooled off instead of running during the hottest part of the day.
We were pretty much finished with the work we needed to have done by around 6:30. So by the time I figured out where to turnaround for a two mile out and back and got my shoes changed it was about 7. It was by far the worse run that I've had. I probably started out a little too fast because that's what I do. I could hardly run anymore once it was time to turn around, I was completely dead. So from there on I had to throw in walks with the fast (which weren't really fast any more) and slow runs. I ended up with a time of 17.13. Which is a lot better time than it felt like it should have been. Maybe I turned around too soon and didn't actually run the too miles or maybe I started out a ton faster than I thought I did.
I'm pretty sure a couple of things contributed to the bad run. The first one is that I was in the sun all day and got a little burnt. The second one being that I ate breakfast at about 10 and didn't eat anything else until about 10 that night, I stayed pretty hydrated though.
I'm hardly ever in the sun. We don't have any windows at work so I don't get any sunlight that way. Because of my messed up sleep pattern (I'm planning a post about that sometime) I usually end up taking a little nap for a few hours after work and by then the sun is down. Even when I'm up after work I'm not outside because we don't have a yard or anything like that. So Saturday was pretty much the first time I've been in the sun for more than a few minutes since last summer.
Even with my lack of exposer to the sun I didn't think I needed to use sunscreen. I did leave my t-shirt on so I didn't fry my back though, although had I taken it off I would have used sunscreen. After awhile I could tell my neck was starting to burn so I put some on it, but it was too late. My right arm was also getting pretty red. I have no idea why just the right one got burnt, I wasn't in the same place all day or anything like that. Once I started running I could tell that the back of my legs were burnt. But it was okay because it only hurt every time shorts rubbed against them, and that only happened when I took a stride. Even if I wouldn't have been stupid and used sunscreen I never would have thought to put any on the backs of my legs.
As for the not eating all day thing, I do that a lot so I don't think that had nearly as much to do with the bad run at the sun did. My diet is horrible. The fact that I actually ate breakfast that morning is pretty surprising, I do that about three times a year. Since my sleeping is so messed up I usually take a nap at lunch instead of eating too. Then after work I'll snack on some chips or something until I fall asleep for my evening nap. By the time I get up Amy usually already ate something so I'll have a bowl of cereal of a salad and then snack on stuff off and on for the rest of the night until I go to bed (well, fall asleep for the night anyway).
So the moral of the story is wear sunscreen on all parts of your body that are not covered up and eat once in awhile.
We stopped by Lincoln Running Company on our way out of town today. They only had Nike heart rate monitors so I tried one of those one. I really liked how it fit so now I have to add that one to my list of ones to chose from. I picked up a couple pair of socks while I was there too (why does writing about socks make me feel like such a loser?). Ann highly recommend Features! Light, they are a thin sock that's wicks moisture. The most important feature is that they come in my size. So I went with those and they do feel better to run in than my normal ones.
This week is a real easy week to recover a little bit, just 7 miles spread out over 4 runs. I moved Sunday's 1.5 mile run to tonight and ran it on the treadmill so I could watch some of the Spurs game. It's amazing how easy it is to run at the right pace on a treadmill, I hit my 9 minute mile mark perfectly for a final time of 13.30. Since it's just an easy week I probably won't post about my runs much which will give me time to get some other posts I've been planning done.
I spent all day Saturday at my Grandma's farm helping plant rocks and flowers, chase chickens around and various other little things. I'd planned on getting my run (2 mile fartlek) in out there on the dirt roads. We got out there around 11 so I wanted to wait a while until it cooled off instead of running during the hottest part of the day.
We were pretty much finished with the work we needed to have done by around 6:30. So by the time I figured out where to turnaround for a two mile out and back and got my shoes changed it was about 7. It was by far the worse run that I've had. I probably started out a little too fast because that's what I do. I could hardly run anymore once it was time to turn around, I was completely dead. So from there on I had to throw in walks with the fast (which weren't really fast any more) and slow runs. I ended up with a time of 17.13. Which is a lot better time than it felt like it should have been. Maybe I turned around too soon and didn't actually run the too miles or maybe I started out a ton faster than I thought I did.
I'm pretty sure a couple of things contributed to the bad run. The first one is that I was in the sun all day and got a little burnt. The second one being that I ate breakfast at about 10 and didn't eat anything else until about 10 that night, I stayed pretty hydrated though.
I'm hardly ever in the sun. We don't have any windows at work so I don't get any sunlight that way. Because of my messed up sleep pattern (I'm planning a post about that sometime) I usually end up taking a little nap for a few hours after work and by then the sun is down. Even when I'm up after work I'm not outside because we don't have a yard or anything like that. So Saturday was pretty much the first time I've been in the sun for more than a few minutes since last summer.
Even with my lack of exposer to the sun I didn't think I needed to use sunscreen. I did leave my t-shirt on so I didn't fry my back though, although had I taken it off I would have used sunscreen. After awhile I could tell my neck was starting to burn so I put some on it, but it was too late. My right arm was also getting pretty red. I have no idea why just the right one got burnt, I wasn't in the same place all day or anything like that. Once I started running I could tell that the back of my legs were burnt. But it was okay because it only hurt every time shorts rubbed against them, and that only happened when I took a stride. Even if I wouldn't have been stupid and used sunscreen I never would have thought to put any on the backs of my legs.
As for the not eating all day thing, I do that a lot so I don't think that had nearly as much to do with the bad run at the sun did. My diet is horrible. The fact that I actually ate breakfast that morning is pretty surprising, I do that about three times a year. Since my sleeping is so messed up I usually take a nap at lunch instead of eating too. Then after work I'll snack on some chips or something until I fall asleep for my evening nap. By the time I get up Amy usually already ate something so I'll have a bowl of cereal of a salad and then snack on stuff off and on for the rest of the night until I go to bed (well, fall asleep for the night anyway).
So the moral of the story is wear sunscreen on all parts of your body that are not covered up and eat once in awhile.
We stopped by Lincoln Running Company on our way out of town today. They only had Nike heart rate monitors so I tried one of those one. I really liked how it fit so now I have to add that one to my list of ones to chose from. I picked up a couple pair of socks while I was there too (why does writing about socks make me feel like such a loser?). Ann highly recommend Features! Light, they are a thin sock that's wicks moisture. The most important feature is that they come in my size. So I went with those and they do feel better to run in than my normal ones.
This week is a real easy week to recover a little bit, just 7 miles spread out over 4 runs. I moved Sunday's 1.5 mile run to tonight and ran it on the treadmill so I could watch some of the Spurs game. It's amazing how easy it is to run at the right pace on a treadmill, I hit my 9 minute mile mark perfectly for a final time of 13.30. Since it's just an easy week I probably won't post about my runs much which will give me time to get some other posts I've been planning done.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
