Eric is a genius. I only have to mention that I bought myself a birthday present and within a minute he’s guessed it (ok, he got the number wrong. Who cares). After resisting for years, I have finally joined the weenie brigade and bought myself a geek watch. The price had gone down by half recently, and I gave in to temptation. I’ll try and resist cluttering the blog with too many charts – due to the scaling they always look the same anyway, but I guess once I’m allowed to run around Caragh Lake again, I might post something.Unfortunately the weather has indeed turned nasty again, and so far I have only managed one run outside, yesterday, and that was already asking for trouble because I got caught out by rain with 10 minutes to go. Nevertheless, I managed to establish that my so-far imaginary one mile marker on the Ard-na-Sidhe road was spot on, but that my usual turn-around, according to the new toy, was about 20 meters too late. Actually, I felt quite smug at the accuracy of my distances. I haven’t managed to go out on the Caragh Lake road yet, and I’ll be interested to know how long a loop around the lake really is (within the accuracy of the toy, of course).
Today was a cold morning just above the freezing point (it still was raining rather than snowing, though), but the gale force wind made running outside an unwise choice for a pneumonia victim, so I brought my running gear into work, and went to the gym at lunchtime for 5 miles on the treadmill. This time I managed to bring my HRM, but forgot the mp3 player. I managed to stay on the damn thing for the entire distance, but with a little bit less than a mile to go I increased the pace from 9-minute miles to 8-minute miles, mainly to get it over and done with, boredom was taking over. The heart rate continues to go down, which was pleasing, but is still way above pre-sickness levels. When I switched to 8-minute pace, it went up by about 10 beats, and I used to run those at much lower levels. I don’t know how long it will take to build up my fitness again – a very long time probably as long as I can’t do more than 5 miles in a row, I guess.
The pain in my chest may be getting better, but then again, I used to think I was getting better the day before I get 40 degrees temperature, so that’s no reliable indicator. As long as that pain is still there I have a constant reminder of my sickness and the need to take it easy. I’ll better heed it.
- 30 Jan
- 5 miles, 44:30, 8:54 pace, HR 156
- 31 Jan
- 5 miles, 43:57, 8:47 pace, HR 149
Monthly mileage: 62.5 *sigh*
Cute toy, can't wait for my old 301 to die so I can upgrade. There are some cute google map sites that will incorporate your data onto a nice map. Have fun once you're allowed out!
ReplyDeleteOkay, maybe my heart is strange (well, we know it is flawed anyway) but for me, the elevated heart rate that comes with illness does not seem to affect overall fitness. Rather, I think it has to do with being under stress and a quick response to it. I find that once I am completely healthy it drops right back to normal - sometimes with in a day. It'll be interesting to see if that holds true for you.
ReplyDeleteI hope I didn't spoil the surprise with my quick guess. Welcome to the club, geek!
ReplyDeleteYou should try SportTracks when you have the time. It's a great complement to the Garmin, and it's free, so if you don't like it, no harm done.
It might be 10 days longer than the time you were not running for you to really feel like you're 'back', so just do your best not to get frustrated with the pace of the comeback. You'll get there in good time--just don't get hurt trying to come back to quickly.
Cheers!
All it took was a little bout of pneumonia and I was finally able to outrun you for the month. I imagine that probably won't happen again for some time.
ReplyDeleteHappy belated birthday Thomas! Hope the recovery continues well.
ReplyDeleteI'm still waiting for my 201 to die.
ReplyDeleteGood gift Thomas - you'll enjoy it. I was going to mention SportTracks but Eric beat me to it. It's a bit of a trap though, as you could end up 'wasting' time editing your courses to metre (foot?) perfection.
My guess is four weeks from now you'll be starting to feel like your old self.
Aha Thomas! What did I tell ya?! Welcome to "G4us 305" club! Btw, 405 model already there, let's wait for lower price? What did you tell me - this Gadget will not make me any faster. Almost true, but there's another side - with desire and will it makes the whole process easier, the way I can run any "open sky" direction and my Tool will calculate everything. Hope you enjoy the tool and recover too. P.S. 185 HR in the 1st mile! Something is surely wrong here, take care of it.
ReplyDelete