संसृति कुमारी

It's been a couple of weeks since I did the Run10k and I should probably write something about it, at least so that those that sponsored me (Thank you!) know I completed it. It's been a while and there's really not much one can say about a run like that, so I don't actually have much to write. The format is pretty simple - turn up at 10am, having been driven there by with C in tow, queue for ages to get into the car park (Actually, wasn't too bad - the queue moved pretty quick) and then it's just a case of waiting until the start and of course, take a few photos. They had someone on stage doing some warm ups, but I pretty much ignored that - on a long run, I warm up by starting off slow. There were something like 1,500 people or more doing the run so it was pretty busy - at least as many people had come to lend support, etc as to run.

Group start, all up against the tape that forms the line - I was near the start - the horn goes and we're off. Now, running isn't exactly a spectator sport so I'll save you the blow-by-blow account of my run around Hylands Park, but I'll give you the highlights: There's a lot of grass, the odd road and some trees. I wasn't in top form for the run, having been ill recently and only managing to fit in practice runs once a week. (I usually try to get out running 2-3 times a week) I suspect if I'd manage to fit in a little more training I was hoping to have managed it in under an hour, but as it was I managed it in an hour and two minutes - although according to the log from my GPS watch it wasn't quite 10km anyway. Still, I'm quite pleased with that time - I find doing a "real" race is always better motivation to push myself than training, even training with a target or race in mind. I couldn't have come close to that time even 3-4 months ago and 6 months ago I'd have been lucky to get more than 200m from the line at any pace before collapsing into a heap.

It's just over a month until I do my 10km run and training is going, I think rather well - 7.16km (Just under 4½ miles) today, in 44 minutes. I should be able to run the actual thing in about an hour, which is seems is reasonable going for someone who has started training fairly recently.

However, what I don't get is my heart rate, which you can see from the above link if you click on the tab on the graph at the bottom. My maximum, depending on the formula used, should be about 185-190bpm and yet I'm managing an average of 170 - 90%. That's actually lower than usual, my previous run I was averaging 175bpm.

I should be almost dead after 35-40 minutes of that sort of activity, and yet I'm not. Googling for "Heart Rate Too High" suggests perhaps I'm just a bit weird, and more research online even suggests that many people have the same problem. I guess I should do a proper maximum heart rate test at some point - run flat out and see what happens...

As a result of signing myself up for the 10k run in a couple of months and also due to the Army thing, I thought it would be a good idea to get some sort of heart rate monitor or similar device for running to help me improve. The sergeant that was driving up to Grantham last weekend also mentioned he had a GPS training watch, so I thought I'd investigate and ended up getting myself a shiny Garmin 405 GPS/Heart Rate Monitor watch.

I'll skip the dull technology review but so far, after one run this morning with it on, I'm quite impressed although it will take a while for me to figure out all the functions and use it correctly. One feature I'm particularly interested in the "virtual partner" you run against to keep pace - I have a tendency to either start off too fast or too slow - but managed to mess that up by setting a pace of 9min/km. Oops - I was thinking in mines per mile, I wanted more like 6 minutes per km!

I was already vaguely aware that there's a target heart rate that's idea for longer distance training so I had a quick search online before going for this mornings run and found it's about 70-80% of "maximum heart rate", my maximum being in the 185bpm mark. I need to do some more research but I kept an eye on my heart rate during the run and slowed down whenever I noticed it was above 175bpm. This worked well - I managed a quite reasonable time. After the run I managed to get a nice graph of my speed and heart rate...
( Cut for image )

...oops, well outside the ideal zone. More reading required, but I think I need to start running slower, which explains why I'm improving on shorter runs but not over distance. I'm always pretty knackered after about 20 minutes, which is about right given that I guess I'm usually sitting in the top 90-100% zone (I don't usually back off as much as I did today) and you're not supposed to be able to maintain that zone for that long.

Looks like google aren't the only people doing streetview, unless it's being contracted out. ( Cut for image )