Revenge of the Airlines

Maybe I didn't praise the airlines enough in getting me to where I was going back in 2006 and 2007 when I was traveling at least once a month mainly to run races. Back then I just booked flights, usually under $200 roundtrip, and was good to go. I never had to speak to any individuals regarding any flights; it was all done on the internet without a problem.
My upcoming trip to run the 1/2 in Parkersburg, WV was initially booked last November. I was able to use miles through Continental to book Delta flights to Columbus, Ohio connecting through Cincinnati. Finding a Continental reward flight for 25,000 miles is pretty rare these days (they seem to pimpin Delta and Northwest out for their mileage rewards) so I figured I'd take a shot at it.
With the Delta/NW merger, my flight numbers 6654, 6124, 6119, and 6423 became numbers 4951, 6039, and 4990 sometime this spring. After waiting a couple of weeks with just the 3 flights showing up, I contacted Continental (as that's where the flights were booked) and got put on 6032 for the 3rd leg. Delta just bumped me from me Columbus to Cincinnati leg on the return home..... I guess I got lost with all the flight numbers changing. This morning I happened to check my flight status and discovered that Delta added Atlanta legs to both segments of my trip. Upon further investigation, on my flight to Columbus, I was scheduled to leave Cincinnati for Columbus before my Atlanta flight even departed for Cincinnati. This time when I called Continental, I got some initial pushback and a suggestion that I contact Delta as they were the ones that changed the schedule. Continental eventually came around and rebooked my flights to where I'm now flying Delta through Atlanta to Columbus going up and coming back on a Delta flight to Atlanta then Continental back to Houston. I'm holding off making any rental car changes until it get closer to trip time.
Two weeks after running WV, I 'll be headed to Seattle to run a 1/2 on Labor Day. I booked my nonstop flight to Seattle mid April. At the time my departure time on the flight home was at 5:47 PM....giving me plenty of time to get cleaned up post race, eat, check out yada yada. By the end of April my departure time was changed to 3:50 PM still not a problem. By mid June the departure time was moved up yet again to 1:15 PM.... actually my flight was merged into an earlier flight and deleted. As my 1/2 doesn't start until 9 AM Labor Day, my options are to get faster and finish early enough to get showered/checked out and to the airport (after returning the rental car) on time or find a later flight. So I'm now on an 11:45 PM flight getting back to Houston Tuesday morning. Once again, rental car times are screwed up again but I'm going to hold off changing until I'm convinced flights won't change again.
I used to think training was the toughest part running the 50 states but the real challenge is appearing more and more to be flying.

Second Recovery Ceiling Run

I ran my 2nd recovery run using my heart monitor tonight. Following the hard/easy principle I just read about last week, my 2nd recovery run should've happened last Friday. Oh well, that's what 7 consecutive 100+ temperature days and absolutely no rain will get ya. The 2nd recovery run was well worth the wait though as I found it much easier to run at the slower pace tonight. The number confirmed it when I got home; I stayed at or below my recovery floor for 95% of tonight's run compared to 72% last week. Not only did I stay below the floor much longer, my average pace was 20 seconds faster. I didn't have to stop and walk to allow my heart rate to drop below zone nearly as often this time.
Not far from home I actually thought I felt a few drops of rain. I think it was just me sweating on myself though. The threat of rain at least dropped temperatures before I went out to run. I never thought I'd be thrilled to see that the temperature was below 95 at 6:30 in the evening. Now if it would only rain.....

What the Heck Was That

Today was a hard day as yesterday was a recovery day. I didn't really have anything defined other than the fact that I didn't have to pay attention to the HR monitor. I kinda felt like Phoebe at the start and then quickly burnt out. I need to work on getting a game plan for my hard days.

I did have the usual Thursday night post run margarita and chicken quesadillas at Ricos with the Chupacabras.

Recovery Ceiling Run

Last night was my first run at my newly recomputed 70% recovery floor of 136. Good news is that my average heart rate for the run was 134; bad news is that at some point I spiked to 143 and 28% of my run was above the recovery zone in the aerobic zone. Supposedly this is the toughest part of monitor training.... getting used to running slower to stay in recovery zone. I ended up having to walk inclines to stay at or near my 136 pace; I do believe that much of the 28% above zone was around 137 and that this will improve greatly with time and practice. My pace ended up being 10:40..... ouch!!! That number should decrease with time as well.
The good thing about easy days is that hard days follow. Depending on how I feel tonight, I may push my run tonight to see if I can get a new max HR in order to push all my zones up. Hopefully we'll be one of the lucky ones and catch a stray shower to cool temps dare I dream in the 80s. Stay cool out there.

Going Deeper Down the Heart Rate Monitor Training Path

Yesterday was day 4 of training with the heart rate monitor. Another day another target HR I was trying to maintain. Based on my 175 max HR and 64 resting HR, I was trying to stay in the 70-80% Aerobic zone as computed by Buckeye Outdoors. The 70-80% gave me rates between 142 and 153 that I was trying to stay within. Reviewing my results, it looks like I was in that zone for 68% of the run. I ran early in the morning before work and went for around 7 miles. I found that after 6 miles I started exceeding the 153 rate mainly because I would zone out and forget to focus on running at a slower pace. I also found that it takes longer to return back to the lower zones the longer the run. My average pace, which I didn't pay attention to while I was running, ended up being almost a minute slower than the pace I've been running my weekday runs.
Last night I got the first book that I ordered on HR training, Heart Monitor Training for the Compleat Idiot. I read the first few chapters last night and could already relate even with just 4 training runs with the monitor so far. The book contains training plans that I haven't gotten to yet but may end up using in the next couple of months leading up to my next half marathon. They are based on alternating hard/easy days.
I also learned that my resting heart rate is not 64 but more like 45. I was using 64 based on the latest pulse I had when checking my blood pressure a week or so ago. The correct way to determine resting heart rate is to check it first thing in the morning before getting out of bed. Based on a 45 resting HR, my aerobic zone of 142-153 that I was aiming for yesterday really should have been 136-149.
So I am still very much in the tweeking stages of this HR monitor training. I am now focusing on not exceeding my Recovery Ceiling of 136 on my easy days and targeting 155 as my Threshold Floor on hard days. Those 2 numbers constitute 95% of HR monitor training according to Mr. Parker.

Heart Monitor Training

I'm quickly learning that there's alot more to this heart rate training than I previously realized. Saturday morning was my maximum heart rate test where I was able to get to a track and get an estimate of my max HR. I headed to Huntsville State Park Sunday morning for my long run in what could've been day 1 of my HR training. I brought my watch but forgot the chest strap so day 1 of HR training was a no go. (I was in A zone the whole time while running....I just have no idea if it was the CORRECT zone.) Day 2 of HR training went better as I walked out the door with the chest strap on to make sure I didn't forget it. I was running late and had just enough time to enter my max HR into the Garmin before taking off on the run. Without really looking at zones I tried to keep my HR at 150-155 or below. I was really surprised at the additional effort required running uphill compared to downhill or flat surface running. I was able to keep my HR at the desired level for the most part. It was pretty cool to see the breakdown in the garmin training center of the amount of time and distance that I spent in the different training zones.

I researched zones somewhat last night post run and got somewhat to major overloaded with all the different calculators out there. I never realized that zones can be computed using either straight percentages or the Karhonen heart rate reserve method. For now I believe I'm going to use the straight percentage zones that are in my Garmin and see how that goes.

I also learned that Garmin will be introducing another Forerunner next month; the next model in the 3 series line. I may have to try this one out as the waterproofnesss of it may be just what my overly sweaty self needs. I also learned that moisture is what most likely killed the beeps on both my 205 and 305 models.

Maximum Heart Rate Test

I set out this morning hoping to debunk the "220 - your age" age adjusted formula (220 is for men; women use 226 - age) used to estimate your maximum heart rate.

I ran from my house about a mile to the track at The Woodlands High School 9th grade campus to do the following running test: "After warming up, run at even pace for three minutes, as fast as you can. Jog for two minutes; then run again for three minutes as fast as you can. Your maximum heart rate is the maximum level reached during the second 3 minute run." I don't recall the exact source of the test; I found it online months ago and finally got around to trying it this morning.

The few times I've run with a heart rate monitor, my heart rate has been really high/out of the zones that it should be in while training (using zones defined by the age adjusted formula) so I figured that my max HR was much higher than the age adjusted formula.

I ran back home after the 2nd 3 minute test and walked Waldo around the neighborhood while I was already soaked with sweat. 220 - my age has my estimated maximum heart rate at 175; test results reveal that my maximum heart rate is 175. So much for my theory about being much higher than the estimate. The estimate was dead on for me.

I don't use splits very often on my Garmin and kept resetting instead of just lapping so I ended up with 6 workouts this morning totalling around 4 miles..... All the workouts look impressive for the day until you add up the mileage.

Now that I know that the zones I've used before are good, I need to start using them for smarter training.

Visited States Map

I came across another website today for highlighting states on the US map. They even have maps for Mexican states and Canadian provinces! Here's my updated coloring of states that I've run either half or full marathons to date:



Just counting white states, it looks like there are 13 remaining to be filled in. However, you can barely see Delaware to the right of Maryland and Connecticut and Rhode Island appear to be one state in the above image. That brings the total remaining to 15.

I'm now tracking my workouts only on Buckeye Outdoors as of the start of this month. I was running tandem with Runners World training log and Buckeye during May. A few of the features that I really like about Buckeye are:

• Workouts downloaded into Sport Tracks from my Garmin can be updated electronically (without any manual entry) into Buckeye
• Buckeye has script to list my workouts/races/PRs/future races on the sidebar of my blog
• Race websites and blog entries can be input along with race results
• Buckeye has script to record my workouts on my facebook wall
• GoWagon, a sister? site of Buckeye includes in your profile an option to tweet your workouts and races on twitter
• There is an equipment feature where you can track the mileage on shoes
• Training schedules can be overlayed onto your training log

You still have to get out there and do the workouts, but it makes it alot easier to keep everything tracked. Speaking of training, the plan this weekend is to do a max heart rate test on the track tomorrow morning followed by a long run on Huntsville hills Sunday morning. Huntsville should be good training for Parkersburg.

Goodbye LaLa Land; Hello Bonkville

Well I certainly slowed down to a more appropriate training pace on my lunchtime run today. I recently posted about running my training runs faster than my proper training pace ever since I completed the Houston Marathon in January. I realized 3 miles into my run today that I forgot to eat breakfast this morning. My energy level was noticeably different from just Mondays run. Lesson learned; I will make sure that I always eat before running ...especially in this heat and humidity.

Keep on Rocking

'n' Rolling. Yet another Rock 'n' Roll event has been announced. There was a time when I could name all the Elite Racing events and count them on one hand. They've expanded so much the past couple of years I have no idea how many events they now manage. Hopefully someone there knows and they don't experience massive growing pains. From what I've heard, the inaugaural San Antonio RnR event wasn't the smoothest thing around. I had transportation issues at the RnR Arizona event; I believe it was in its 3rd year and they still didn't have enough busses to get the 1/2 people to the start on time.
Wonder if the day will come when we will be saying "Remember back when marathons didn't have Rock 'n' Roll in their name?" Who's next? Boston?

A Tail of Two Dogs

Had you asked me Thursday if I was going to run this weekend, my answer would have been "yes". However, looking at my mileage for the week, I noticed that it was over my planned mileage for week 1 of my 1/2 training plan. So I ended up doing much needed work in my backyard mainly this weekend. Since the Garmin went unused, I fired it up this afternoon to see what kind of pace my 2 dogs walk. I've been thinking about doing this for the past month but finally remembered to do it today. I usually think about while walking my 15 year old lab/chow mix. Come to find out, I have alot of time to think while walking her as her average pace for the 1/2 mile that we walked was 41:45. As I suspected, she really picked up the pace on the back of the out & back; we were at a pace over 47 minutes when we turned around. Most of the sniffing takes place on the way out.

On the other end of the spectrum, Waldo walked an average pace per mile of 13:28 in a lap around Queenscliff Circle. Waldo is playing with one of the sprinklers Friday after I mowed. At the time I had no idea that he'd be the "before" pic of my weekend project.

Three trips to Home Depot later and a few hours pulling St Augustine grass, I actually have beds along the side of my house again.

Stuck in LaLa Land

I just went back and read an older Ask Coach Jenny article from earlier this year. The article dealt with the common question of what pace you should be running during your workouts. This one sentence pretty much sums up my running the past five months:

"Most people train in the middle -- in what I call "La-La Pace," which is too fast to be slow, and too slow to be fast."

Now that I'm in a 1/2 marathon training window and actually have a schedule to follow, I need to concentrate on training at the correct paces. I may actually put the rarely used heart rate monitor component of my Garmin 305 to work and try training within the proper heart rate zones. I need to figure out my max heart rate though before I can begin zone training. I'll get to the track in the next week or so and run all out to estimate my max hr.

Zetia kicked my zass

After suffering through side effects from the cholesterol med Zetia the past couple of weeks, I called my doctor's office yesterday and got the word to stop taking both of my cholesterol meds until the side effects stop. Hopefully the muscle pain will subside shortly and I'll be able to get back to training. My official 1/2 training program for Parkersburg started yesterday. I plan on following Hal Higdon's 1/2 intermediate plan.