Thoughts in the Hot Tub

Last night soaking in the hot tub, drinking two Corona Lites, and looking up at the stars, I made some short term goals.

1. Figure out this heart rate training business and put it to use in my running workouts.

2. Learn how to ride a bike

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Here's my best understanding of the heart rate training. Your body responds best to conditioning when you don't overexert your heart. If you can train your body to run at a low heart rate, you'll be able to run at a lower heart rate, and then have more reserve for when you need to really run hard. Running at your top heart rate doesn't condition you as well, exhausts you and requires more time to recover, as well as depriving you of a post workout high.

So even if you have to walk periodically to keep your heart rate low, you should do that.

Many top runners never train full out -- they save that for the big race.

Here's a good article on finding out your maximum heart rate:

How To Determine Maximum Heart Rate
by Sally Edwards

I Like the Biggest Number Test outlined below:

Biggest Number Test. This is one of those that is simply obvious. Given that you've worn your heart rate monitor a while, especially during hard workouts, your Max HR is the biggest number you have ever seen on your heart rate monitor (the biggest reasonable number, not 300 bpm, say--you don't want to take one that's influenced by interference).

Also the 5K race test

5K Race Test. This can be taken by anyone skiing, running, biking, or snowshoeing. Enter a 5K race, and during the last 1-2 minutes go to a full sprint. Keep checking your heart rate monitor and add 5 beats to the highest number recorded there during this period. The result should be your Max HR (because of muscle fatigue, you can't drive yourself all the way to true Max
HR at this point).

So adapting this to myself, if 179 was the highest heart rate I saw, but I did not do a full sprint at the end, I feel I can add at least 5 beats for now to give me a maximum heart rate of 184.

So then my training ranges would be:

90% = 165
85% = 157
80% = 147
75% = 138
70% = 129
60% = 110

Now there is no way I can run and stay in the 60 to 75% training zone. I would have to be fast walking.

Here is another heart rate training zone calculator, which incorporates something called the Karoven method where your training zone becomes a calculation between your resting heart rate and your maximum heart rate. I'm using 64 as a resting heart rate.

Heart Rate Calculator

If I follow this, then my training zones are as follows:

60-75% = 136-154
75%-85% = 154-166

This works for me.

So while I will continue to investigate this area, I will try to do my training runs in the 139-156 range, resolving to slow or walk whenever my heart rate tops 156. I will try to do this twice a week.

Once a week I can run in the 156-167 range, provided I am off the next day.

I do know that I should recalculate my maximum heart rate every so often.

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Now the biking. Yesterday after my run I went down to this sports shop in Glastonbury that sponsors a bi-weekly sprint triathlon starting in June. I was hoping to get some triathlon expertise. They didn't have much in a selection of bikes. The guy did let me try a $900 elite hybrid. When I told him I hadn't ridden since the first grade(this deserves a long explanatory entry. I actually had a Schwinn Speedster and rode a bike up through seventh or eighth grade) he was clearly appalled and made me put on a helmet even though I was just going to be riding on the sidewalk in front of the store. I got a course in how to use the brakes, but ended up dragging my sneakers to help stop.

I am very confused on the bike stuff now, as each store I have gone to has recommended something different. I have a few days to research it, but I am leaning back toward a cheap mountain bike followed once I learn to ride the mountain bike with a good road bike.

My potential first race is in nine weeks and that does not seem like a lot of time to be able to get ready. The bike has to become my first priority.

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I did get some good advice on a wet suit from the guy at the Glastonbury store. He said not to bother right now. The lake water is warm and the race is only 1/4 mile. Maybe if later I am going to be doing a 1/2 mile in the ocean, I might want one, but don't even think about it yet. I think he was thinking there is no way this guy is going to learn to ride a bike well enough to even do one so why waste the money on a wetsuit.

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Here's my next road race possibilities:

April 21 (Saturday) - 5K Run - Hebron 5K Road Race

May 12 (Saturday) - 5K Run - Race in the Park 9:30 A.M Schedule of Events

And the first possible triathlon:

June 14 (Thursday) - Sprint Triathlon 1/4 mile swim/12 mile bike/3.2 mile run - Lake Terramugus

I may not do the Hebron run because this coming week I will be working forty hours in three days during the day, and then switching and working forty hours in three days during the nights, so my sleep schedule may be too messed up to train properly. If I do run it will be a spur of the moment thing.