Friday, July 13, 2007

Getting back to normal

The back is still a bit stiff, but much better than it was. I went for a bout of cross-training last night. I spent 12 minutes on a stationary bike, then 5k on the treadmill (does that count as cross training?) and 1 k of freestyle. Plus I did a few strength exercises, but I need to approach those in a more structured way.

This morning the alarm woke me from a deep sleep and I fumbled my way out the door and ran a lower aerobic 15.5 km in 1:14:35, average pace of 4:48, average heart rate of 141. The humidity made this a tough little run. I only aimed for it to be lower aerobic, but despite the conversation over at Ewen's place, I did find that my heart rate crept up past the upper figure (143) for lower aerobic. I slowed as necessary to stop it going too far out of range, but still the average HR after 30 min is above what it should be, and the gradual heart rate drift can be seen in the pace vs heart rate of the splits.

I was still definitely a lot happier with it as a run than last Friday's, which although doesn't look too bad on paper, practically did my back in.

5 comments:

TD said...

Good to see the back is on the mend and that you were also able to get some cross training in as well. The treadmill is definitely cross training from my perspective,

Ewen said...

Unlike Don, I'd count treamill ks towards weekly kilometres. Ingrid Kristiansen ran most of her winter training on the treadmill - I'm sure she counted in the diary.

Regarding the conversation... I do have a flattish 1k loop. I was thinking of running it after 2 or 3k of a long run at X HR, then again near the end of the run at X HR to monitor 'drift'. In your experience, is 2 or 3k enough of a warm-up to get reliable data?

Stephen Lacey said...

Ewen, I definitely snaffled those 5km into the log book, don't you worry about that !

The heart rate audit you propose is probably OK. It might depend on the time of day you are running and the weather, but I probably would find 2-3 km a little on the short side to feel into the groove of a run. 3 km would probably be on the lower end, 5 km should be OK. On my early morning runs, when I am going to work up to say 75-77%, I take very little notice of the HRM until about 3 km into the run, then I might finally be starting to get near "cruising altitude". With weather like we had today (a humid fug ahead of the typhoon that is bearing down on Japan), drift then starts to set in within a couple of km. But in cooler weather at long run pace it can take a long time for me to see much drift. I think with the cool weather you have at the moment, you would be better to see what happens between 30 minutes and 1 hour 15 minutes on a lower aerobic run (75-77%).

By the way, what about doing Hadd's 2400m repeats on a track in increments of 10 heart beats? My little training group did it a few weeks ago (though only 2000m) and will repeat it every six weeks through to our autumn marathons. I blogged about it at the time.

Ewen said...

Watch out Steve, you're sounding like Joh Bjelke-Petersen ;)

Thanks, I was thinking that was a bit short. I'll work out a course where I can run 4k before the first 1000m test.

The 2400m test as outlined by Hadd would be difficult on the grass track. Also, I don't like the idea of "having to be fully rested as for a race". I might try it though, just to "see what happens".

I'd like to adapt something Canova did with Baldini... using an acoustic rabbit (a sound for each 25 metres), then using cones on the track I can run an exactly even pace, say for 2000m, and see what the finish HR is at that pace. That way I can start from resting HR, and run 2000m evenly in say, 10 minutes. Improved fitness would show as a lower HR at 10 minutes (if weather etc is similar).

Ewen said...

I have a good course. 3k before the first 1000m test, then again the same 1000m at 11k if a 15k run or at 14k if an 18k run. Can extend this out to 24k or more.

Did it today at HR 128 (HR seemed generally up a bit today) - first 1000 was 6:17/km and the one at 11k was 6:16/km, both sitting on HR 128.

I'll try it on the 18k version at a higher HR, maybe 135.