This morning was the first of what I hope will be a very long string of easy morning runs. The idea behind the initial stages of heart rate training is that you should be doing most, if not all, your training at your target heart rate. With an entire month of big races/events coming up in October, I am not willing to give up my current training in order to do that. As a compromise I am going to try to run at least 30 minutes every morning at or below 155 HR. This leaves my afternoons and evenings open for my other normal workouts.

Maybe after Ironman Austin I will be able to devote all of my workouts to heart rate training for a few months. I am looking forward to the point where my low heart rate pace starts dropping. 

New Job and New Toy!!

 Today was my first day in a new position. I am still just an intern but different office and different responsibilities. I am slowly working my way closer to the job I want not just what I have to do to pay the bills while in Grad School.

Causeway Bridge

This switch adds about 25 minutes of bridge driving (see above) to my commute each way which means morning runs happen in the dark.  Not a big deal since during the summer in Louisiana that is the most comfortable time to run anyway.

Waiting in my mailbox when I got home was my new-to-me Garmin Forerunner 310xt!

Garmin Forerunner 310xt

I had a Forerunner 305 for a few years until I lost it at a post-race party a couple weekends ago. Since I have started doing heart rate training I decided to upgrade to the 310XT in order to have vibrating alerts.

I have only used it once but I am already in love. The vibrating alerts set to the heart rate zone worked well on the run. Running 11+ minute mile pace is still painfully boring to me to but with the new watch I can start to zone out since I don’t need to look at the watch every 5 seconds. (Audio books on my mp3 player also help with the zoning out J)

Another neat feature of the 310XT is how it works with the Training Peaks Device Agent. This allows me to wirelessly upload the data straight to Training Peaks. I can now leave the watch plugged in near the front door so I won’t forget to grab it on my way out.  

Heart Rate Monitor

Yesterday, I pulled my heart rate monitor out of the closet, for the first time in years, and took it to a speed-work with me. I always assumed I was in pretty decent aerobic condition. I have run two marathons, a couple half-marathons, and just finished my first half marathon with acceptable times.

 The walk from my car to the track brought my heart rate up to a whopping 127 bpm.  A very easy 1 mile warm up jog hit 182, and the hardest of the 10x300 workout peaked at 192 bpm. Eeek!

Today's swim-bike workout was not as scary. A half mile open water swim averaging 152 bpm followed by 10+ miles on the bike averaging 157 bpm.

 The coach told me I need more long slow runs and I need to run my slow runs at 70% heart rate. My internal response, “Screw that. I just ran 8 miles at 8:45 pace. I don’t need slow training.”

As usual, I am wrong.

After spending a slow day at work researching heart rate training, I am willing to admit it might have some merit (imagine that). The most convincing article I read was Working Your Heart by Mark Allen. How I currently understand it, 60-70% of your max heart rate is the intensity at which your body is able to convert fat to fuel and if you consistently train at that heart rate you will be able to run faster at that heart rate. As much as I want to believe that I am just too good for long slow training, if it a 6 time world ironman champion isn’t too good for heart rate training I can hardly claim to be.  Maybe I will acquire some patience along the way.