Thorny Issues

I did a double take at the HR figure displayed on the Garmin after Wednesday’s run. Average pace 7:43 at a heart rate of only 137? This seemed too good to be true, and my first suspicion was that the battery in the chest strap was acting up once again. This would have been a problem because I had planned an evaluation workout for Thursday and a working HRM is absolutely vital for that.

I went along with the evaluation anyway and not only do the figures look good, I think they are accurate as well. I know reasonably well what it feels like to run at HR 161 and if the HRM had displayed wildly wrong numbers, I would have noticed.

One problem I have at the moment is the lack of an audible alarm feature in my Garmin. That stopped working half a year ago after I had dropped it onto the kitchen floor once too often. I used to use it to keep my effort in a narrow band of HR 159-163 for the evaluations; now all I can do is run as evenly as possible and keep an eye on the display. Luckily the coach had come up with a formula, for every 2 bpms you’re out add or subtract 7 seconds to your pace. I used that formula to normalize Thursday’s numbers and came up with the following result:

Mile 1 6:39, mile 2 6:39, mile 3 6:42, mile 4 6:35. Then it took 35 seconds for the HR to return to 130.

On the way home I added 3x800, run at a fast but relaxed effort in 3:08, 3:04, 3:03, though the second and possibly the third were net downhill. That’s the same workout the coach had recommended a year ago before my previous stint as pacer in Dublin.

The figures are very good. I'm way ahead of where I was least year around the same time. The hope now is to build on this, and running pacing marathons like the one coming on Monday is a corner stone to that. My aerobic engine is stronger than ever before and still building; my fears that I would go downhill once I reach the age of 40 were obviously premature.

Actually, there was one more problem yesterday. When I started the eval, I pressed the lap button and got confused by the display. It was still very dark but instead of looking at the road I kept fiddling with the watch while running 6:30 pace, and before I knew it I had run off the road, right into the blackberry bushes. Thankfully there were no witnesses and I got up and running again immediately, after all I was in the middle of a tempo run, but I noticed my right knee and elbow stinging a bit. I ignored that. It wasn’t until I came home that I could appreciate my war wounds in their full beauty, which were gross enough to freak Niamh out. The photo does not do it justice at all, my knee was covered in a layer of caked blood. But after a shower (Maia would have loved the lovely pink colour of the water going down the drain), only a set of superficial cuts remained. I will wait and see how long they take to heal; I might be in for a few interesting questions on Monday.

Friday’s run was great; no clouds, just a stunning star-covered sky as I seemingly headed straight for Orion in all its glory. I felt as good as the scenery, and a quick check through my logs indicate that I have never even come close to running sub-7:30 pace at such a low heart rate before, assuming that the HRM is working correctly. I’m going into Dublin in great shape; don’t destroy it, Thomas. The real race is still 5 months away.

Btw, I came across the same 2 loose horses again. That's the third time this week.

27 Oct

12 miles, 1:24:21, 7:02 pace, HR 152
   incl. 4 miles eval, “normalized” 6:39, 6:39, 6:42, 6:35, 0:35 to HR 130; 3x800 in 3:08, 3:04, 3:03

28 Oct

10 miles, 1:14:54, 7:29 pace, HR 141