Long Slow Run with HRM

Yesterday my running partner and I braved the oncoming rain and headed out for a 10+ mile run. When I woke it was warm out with no sprinkles, so warm I passed on the tights. But the rain didn't hold out for long and greeted us at the start of our run on the West side of the esplanade.

We have been talking about keeping our long runs slow so as to keep our heart rate under our recovery ceiling thus keeping us in the fat burning zone. The idea is to burn fat instead of reaching into our glucose stores. So like I said we have been talking about it and trying to do it. Today we both strapped on our Heart Rate Monitors and did it for real. We knew we were going to be going slow and that the full run would take around 2 hours. Our target heart rate was 147 and we were really successful in keeping it there. It was sort of fun to watch our heart rates so closely, we even managed to stay under on our small hills. My heart rate was a bit lower than my partner's, but not much. Overall my average was 141 for the run with an avg pace of 10:45.

As we were finishing I really felt like I could run a full marathon at that pace. My feet were hurting a little bit but my legs and body felt great. I even considered adding and extra 5 miles to run home from downtown, but not seriously. My mile were high this week (36) and I didn't want to push 40 yet. Later in the day I felt really good as well, not very tired and not very sore. I did quite a bit of stretching throughout the day and the next morning I felt a bit sore and tired, but not bad.

We are scheduled for a recovery run this morning of five miles. I just got a text hoping to put it off until tonight. Sounds good to me, I'm pretty pooped this morn.

I have been trying to figure my resting heart rate in the morning right after I wake up. The first time I tried it it was 46. The next day 47 and today 49. The cats kept jumping up on me while I was laying there and not helping. I want to measure how low I can get it while doing chi gong breathing exercises. I am sure it would go even lower.

Mileage, mileage!

Last week marked the second week in a row I managed to get in over 30 miles. I feel pretty good, no exhaustion, no overwork, no lingering aches (other than my usual feet things.) I also found myself running for six days in a row without a break. Usually I will go three days max before I take a rest day, but it just worked out to do the six days. My only issues seem to my my feet aching and a slight case of boredom.

To counteract that boredom I just got a Garmin Forerunner 405. So far I really like it, the reports it gives are amazing. Way more info than I could ever want on my run. A few quick complaints: its a little large and gets caught in my sleeve, the maps that the computer based reporting system uses are really crappy (compared to MapMyRun which uses Google Maps it totally pales) and the bezzle interface can be a little sensitive. I have gotten spoiled with Google maps and the almost blank maps the software displays are completely unacceptable. I hope I can figure out how to change that, there must be a way.

I have never used a heart rate monitor before, and it is pretty fascinating to watch. Apparently there are a number of ways to sue the data to maximize training that I am looking forward to utilizing. Hurray, more ways to get scientific.