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.