HEART RATE

Over the last 25 years I've done a lot of running and most of it hasn't just been running for the sake of running, but training hard in search of fast times...

I've always run to the clock, timed my reps and I know what shape I'm in and can start a session saying today will be 8 x 1km at 3:25, and they will be that!!! OK when I was younger I would gun it and see how many I could do in a set time (too fast for me to aim at 10 x 1000).

What about my easy runs, well easy is just easy, if I was feeling great I could run 10km in say 40min, or if I was tired I would take 50min. No problem.

Roll on 2013 and Ms 310... she not only tells me how fast I'm running and how far I've run, but she also listens to my heart!

Over the years I've had a couple of friends run to their heart rates and some thought it good and others didn't really know what was happening!!!

Now, one of the blogs I read (Miss Zippy) is using her HRM, so I decided to do a couple of runs with the HRM...

Wearing a Bra!

My first run was a "long" (OK not so long) 20km run on the road and flat... I was a couple of km down the road when I look at the HR and it was about 130, so I did a few sums and decided that 140 would be a good max for the day...

Not having set Ms 310 to shout at me when my HR got to high I had to keep looking. This was not good news as one other the other fields on that screen was ave pace!!! (Oh Dear!!!) so I watch the 2 fields and it wasn't till the first hill that my HR started to climb to 137  139 slow down Coach, 142 too late... 139 there we go. It was hard for me to watch the ave pace drop and I had just got it under 4:30, it was at 4:28... I had to relax and pick up the pace on the down hill.

The game I play... down we go and faster we go, that 5:00 km really hurt the pace. But it's about control and control is hard. I lost it one other time, but the road was flooded and I had to throw in a surge to get over the water or get splashed by a passing car, 142 again...

I ended the 20km in 89:48 which was, in my books, nicely done Coach.

Another long run (on the road) had me running 15km flat same pace 4:30 for the 140 HR, then I climb to the Nek and really had too slow to a slowest km of 5:53, but coming down I was running sub 4:10 and my HR dropped as low as 120...

With all this in mind, one of my athletes, who has just gotten a new watch (with HRM), text me and said: what now I have a cold I need a long run, what about my marathon ect.. ect.. ect.. I said: No worries I guess your aren't really sick, but are starting to feel the heavy training and your body is rebelling... So listen to your heart and do the run, but don't worry about how fast you are running, just don't let your RH go over 150-155 (he's a lot younger than me and these number are based on age and fitness, or just the zones on your HRM).

His long run was fine and he even did the session in the week watching the HR working at a % of his max, so, yes he was slower, but he wasn't taking strain and get the session in, BONUS. He didn't get really sick and again is looking good for Knysna.

And that is my story for this week, the Coach has spoken.

PS I'm not a Doctor, so what I tell you is from years of running and listening to my body and watching my "kids" so if you don't feel comfortable doing that talk to a real Doctor...