check-in

[ilanarama]

It's been about a month since the last one, so let's have a check-in. How goes your running? Done any races, or are you planning any in the spring (or fall, for the Antipodeans among us)? If you're a new member of this community, why not introduce yourself?

Comments

[ell]

Yay, a check-in!

My big news is that despite being a mediocre age-grouper, I've gone and hired a coach!!! (she uses lots of motivational !!! and it's rubbing off)

This means that I'm running far less and doing a lot more swimming, ugly bike workouts on the trainer, going to the gym twice a week for strength work, etc.

She has me on a heart rate monitor (first time in my life) and at the moment, I'm running between 11 and 12 minute miles in an effort to keep my runs in the moderate zone. I hate it. It's 1 to 2 minutes per mile slower than my usual long run paces. She swears it will get better and she's the coach so I have to trust her. Tomorrow, I'm going out to run hard and try to get a baseline maximum heart rate. That should be fun...

And first race of the season is in two weeks! As part of my New Year's resolution, I will post a race report within a week of running it :-)

Finally, if anyone wants to friend me on Daily Mile, (www.dailymile.com) let me know (pm is better since that's my real-life name)

[ilanarama]

I hope the coach works out for you. I'm not a fan of running less, especially if you are focusing on longer distances, though as you are a triathlete as well (aren't you?) that might be better for your overall goals. I also don't see the point in running slowly to keep in an arbitrary zone until after you've actually measured your HRmax. The 220-age formula is like BMI, designed for population averages and not individuals. But once you do have your HRmax and resting HR figured out, I think low HR training is a good way to improve.

Good luck on your season's first race - what is it?

[ell]

Well, this is all new for both me and the coach, we're still feeling each other out. And yeah - I've been pretty much skipping the biking and the swimming for the last 6 months or so between the last marathon and then winter. Also, in there somewhere I screwed my hip up and was considering that 30 miles a week with 2 days of speedwork was "light" exercise, so I think that having an external person tell me to back off the running for now and start biking and swimming again was really the right decision. The hip and the underlying IT Band issues haven't bothered me in 2 weeks now :-)

As for the arbitrary heart rates. Yeah. Going out today to do 20 minutes of hard effort to try and find more info on the max heart rate :-)

First race is the Frankfurt 1/2 marathon :-)

Thanks for all your comments and advice!

[ilanarama]

I would blame the 2 days of speedwork, not the 30mpw, but I hope you get things figured out.

[38thparallel]

I've always wanted to monitor my heart rate, but am still on the fence about which monitor is most reliable, what to buy, etc (especially after assessing prices on Amazon!) What kind are you using? Have you noticed any improvements over the past few weeks?