Posted on January 21st, 2010 by ryan
Filed under Running, Social aspects, Training |
In reviewing Heart Rate Monitor Training for the Compleat Idiot, author John L. Parker, Jr. sums up its big contribution to a training program pretty succinctly on page seven: “Alternate hard days with easy days”.
He also calls this “The General All-Purpose Training Principle That Everyone Agrees With But Nobody Follows”.
I’m trying to do this myself, and yes, I’m finding it hard to follow, which is likely the reason why nobody follows it. What’s hard? Interestingly, it’s not the hard days–the days I go all out or close to all out, doing intervals or trying to build speed.
It’s the days that are supposed to be easy.
Looking at the numbers that I figured out about my heart rate from this book, an “easy” day for me means keeping my heart rate under 146.8–essentially 146 or lower. A “hard” day means keeping my heart rate at 165.4 or higher.
While it’s an effort, especially as I improve my fitness, to keep my heart rate above 165, it’s more of an effort to keep the rate below 146.8. It involves going very, very slowly–sometimes even walking–on my long and medium length runs. It’s really hard when I’m running when someone else, or being passed, because I just don’t feel like I’m working hard enough.
Discipline is the key. Even this week, trying to recover from my hard race on Sunday, I tried to instead do a hard three mile run on Tuesday–and it was an abysmal failure. Going more slowly–but not slowly enough–on my next two runs was hard because of the peer pressure of running with someone else who isn’t on this program–and getting left in the dust by that person despite cheating and going a little harder than 146.8 didn’t really help.
It’s amazing how hard it is to go slowly. I’m hoping it gets easier as time goes on.
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Posted on January 20th, 2010 by ryan
Filed under Organized events, Running, Training |
I’m crunching for time, but making it happen. Currently my workout schedule is down to “only” eight workouts a week–four runs, four rides–but they’re taking up a bunch of time since I’m trying to do longer and longer runs on Sundays, up to ten miles this week. Going slowly as my heart rate training is […]
Posted on January 18th, 2010 by ryan
Filed under Bicycling, Organized events, Personal, Running, Social aspects |
While Tweeting up with some of the local folks this weekend, one of them said they wanted to donate to my Livestrong Challenge effort but didn’t really understand it. So I figured I’d blog about it to try to give them a better idea of what I’m doing. Let’s see how this works in the […]
Posted on January 18th, 2010 by ryan
Filed under Organized events, Running |
Last year, I wrote about the Ford Island Bridge Run right around when I started this blog. It was the first organized event I did after starting Athletic Diabetic, and just today in the mail the entry for the 2010 version of the event showed up. For folks on O’ahu, this is a follow up […]
Posted on January 15th, 2010 by ryan
Filed under Organized events, Personal, Running |
I’m tired and sore but I had a fine time and I learned more about myself, even if I didn’t reach my speed goal. Today was the 8K, the second of three races in the Great Aloha Run Readiness Series. In addition to a nice shirt, I ran myself up and down a hill and […]
Posted on January 14th, 2010 by ryan
Filed under Diet, Medical care |
I don’t like to watch what I’m eating. I’m certainly not one to count calories or carbohydrates although I do take a look at nutrition labels a lot. However, the fact that my sugars have been higher than they used to be, I’ve had to watch my diet a lot more closely. I’ve already pretty […]
Posted on January 13th, 2010 by ryan
Filed under Bicycling, Organized events |
I’m committed to another event–this one the Haleiwa Metric Century. I’ve done this event before, in 2008, when I finished–even though I struggled through–four big events. I actually did very well for sixty of the sixty two miles, then flatted. The worst part is that I did something I almost never do in this kind […]
Posted on January 12th, 2010 by ryan
Filed under Organized events, Running |
My first competitive run since the 5K in December was the Harold Chapson 8K, part of the three race Great Aloha Run Readiness Series. Like the Sylvia A. Martz 5K, it starts and ends at Kapi’olani Park in Waikiki on O’ahu; unlike the SAM’s 5K, it’s not all flat. In fact, it was rather hilly. […]
Posted on January 11th, 2010 by ryan
Filed under Organized events, Running, Training |
I’m cautiously optimistic. I’m having some of the best training runs I’ve ever had and I feel pretty darned fine, but I am having the occasional bit of knee pain in both knees and my back, while better than when I started this current training program, still hurts and is stiff from time to time. […]
Posted on January 8th, 2010 by ryan
Filed under Administration, Bicycling, Motivation, Organized events, Personal, Running, Social aspects |
I’m committed now. I’m definitely going to Philadelphia for the Livestrong Challenge, and I’ll be doing both the 10K run (which, quite frankly, I’m not worried about) and the century (which, quite frankly, I am worried about). And as I said the other day, I have been just blown away by the generosity of the […]