Posts Tagged ‘heart rate’

I had a happy weekend despite the hamstring injury.  Since it was a cutback week and Saturday was a scheduled rest day, all I missed was Sunday’s run.

My internet investigation revealed the hamstring owie to be a Grade I strain that, barring any reinjury, ain’t no big thang.  Under some wise Adam advisement (thanks, Coach Man!), the week has a few minor changes: a 5k pace workout on Tuesday is now an easy run and Friday’s 8x1ks @ 10k pace will morph into 8x800s, which I’ll cut short if anything feels weird.

Other than that, the homemade compression sleeve and slushy icepack continue to work their magic.  I got out this morning for a reaaaally slow 7 (10:17 pace).  Last time I went that slow was the first run after Boston and before then?  2008!  Lol.  But I could feel the hammy’s presence and was reminded further when I rushed across the street to beat a stoplight, so “leisurely” was the word.

It was actually quite an enjoyable run – you don’t heat up half as much in “Feels Like” 86 when you’re going that slow.  Clothes still needed wringing out, but it could have been 70 degrees as far as comfort level.

The Running Gods Replied
Just last Monday I beseeched the Running Gods for a sign, any sign, to instill a touch of confidence back into my running.   Oddly enough, I got my wish during this injured weekend…

Thanks to this summer being unusually hot and humid, I stopped wearing my heart rate strap a few weeks ago since all it was doing was making me feel inadequate.  However, I still check my resting rate a few mornings each week because I like keeping tabs on the trend.  The lowest it’s ever been was 45 (and that was a temporary flicker during my big improvement period last year), usually it’s 48 and in the last month or so, 49.

So imagine my shock when I put the strap on this Saturday and saw the numbers do their usual descending dance, only to hit 42.  42?!  Huh?  This was so unexpectedly weird that I thought my Garmin was flaking out on me.  So I turned it off and on…still 42.  Ever suspicious, I dug out the old Polar heart rate monitor and…well, will you look at that? 42.

But wait, there’s more.

Sunday, I again put on the strap wondering what I’m going to see and you could have knocked me down with a feather: 44, 43, 42, 41…40 beats per minute! Granted, it didn’t stay there long, but Oh. My. God.

My heart, the primary organ in all this running stuff, is giving me an unbiased indication that something good is happening.  Whether it’s from more sleep (average 6.75 hrs/night for July so far and getting better) more rest days, lowered average mileage, or all of the above, I am on track!

Sure, it still remains to be seen as to how or when this will reflect in my paces.  But even if they don’t drop in time for a PR in September, I’m cool with that! Because if nothing else, this says I’m getting healthier.  I’m not stagnating, I’m not moving backwards.  The Girl, she is in motion.

Did my first proper (non-Billat) interval session in 6 weeks and am happy to say, saw a clear sign of progress, something I took for granted last year till it starting backing up on me like a gas station toilet.

Today’s session was 10.20mi total: 2.75mi to my interval spot, 5 x 1000 w/2min recoveries, then 3.25mi home.  The intervals averaged 4:07 (6:37 pace) and when I compare that to my last set of intervals 6 weeks ago (6×800 w/2min rec’s. averaging 6:54), that’s a solid improvement and getting closer to last Fall’s times.  Looks like the Billats were not spinning my wheels one bit.

Another happy thing about this workout was it’s only the 2nd time I’ve ever hit my max recorded HR of 193, which I was beginning to think I’d dreamt up.  The first and only other time it’s ever hit it was in 2007 at my first 5K and that’s what I’ve been basing my HR around (calling it 198 since it’s unlikely you ever hit 100%).

The interesting thing is that I once hit 192 a year ago, also doing 1000m intervals, so perhaps that particular distance draws it out of me better than any other.  It was 65 degrees today, so that probably helped sneak it up there, too.  All I know is, however it got up there it’s a relief since for quite a while now, my max HR has felt capped, that my tempos were reaching the same max as my speed sessions (too high for a tempo, too low for speed).

And for the record, I averaged 184 on those intervals.  Don’t want you to think my heart was about to explode or anything.

Weight
Yay! I finally hit my usual “normal” weight of 117.5 this week (4 lbs lost).  I haven’t been sacrificing much, just stopped buying cookies and candy and have been eating salad for most dinners – which I love.  I stick in a handful of walnuts and dried cranberries along with tons of veggies, so it’s not a sacrificial meal.  I’m still eating my nightly ice cream topped with sweet cereal for added yummy crunchiness.

Breakfast is usually a 5-grain hot cereal with tons of cinnamon and some sweet-n-low (nobody’s perfect), lunch is a turkey sandwich and I’ve been addicted to Bobbi’s Hummus (thanks Jenn!) so I eat that daily as a snack with crackers.  One main thing is I stopped buying huge bread.  Seriously, I was getting very large sliced bread which means more peanut butter or whatever you slather on there.

I was 119lbs. when I ran Philly but my best races last season were at 115.5, so it looks like I’ll be right there again for Boston.  As mentioned before, I hate to say this stuff with so many people having body issues, but it’s physics, so there’s no sense pretending it doesn’t make a difference.  And for those tsk-tsking readers (you know who you are) remember, I’m 5’4″…so 115 is not a radical body weight by any means but it will, unquestionably, be an important component to racing well.

The Wheelchair Lady
If you’re my friend on Facebook, you’ve already read about that lady on Tuesday.  As I was finishing up a 12-miler, a stones throw from my front door, a woman passed me in an electric wheelchair and called out, “run an extra mile for me!”.  If it wasn’t a couple days after the race with me feeling achy still, I would have, but I didn’t, I just wanted to stop.  And I got called out for it a tad.

Of course, I felt like shit for not doing it but I’m honest about my foibles and that was one.  So yesterday I ran 2 miles extra for her, did an 11 instead of the 9 I had planned.  Made me feel somewhat better but hey, I think we all know I’m a solid bitch at heart.  I got no problems with that, since I have enough sweetness to equal out.  hee hee

Boston Goal
Been thinking about this a bit and am hereby declaring it…3:25, nothing faster.  My race last Sunday calculates out to a 3:20:26 marathon but it was on a totally flat course, so I figure 5 minutes of leeway should do me alright.  If not, and I end up slowing down more, that’s cool too, I really don’t give a crap.

I’m looking forward to trying out my new marathon pace this Saturday since it’s slower than any of my goal MP workouts thus far.  I hope to see a very pretty number on the HR monitor.  That’ll tell me if I shouldn’t dumb it down further, which would suck since I walked such a large amount of Philly for a 3:33, but hey, it’ll be what it’ll be…the Heart knows.

Many thanks to Jim for turning me onto Veronique Billat’s workout, 30/30s.  It wasn’t till I got home and downloaded my HR data that I really got the point of what these are about.

When you read about or explain the Billats, it’s human nature to want to compare it to something recognizable, so you think it must be like strides or fartleks.  It’s neither.  It’s an ocean wave of running. 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off, 20 times.

The difference between Billats and strides/fartlek is that the latter give you true recovery.  With Billats, 30 seconds goes by in a flash, so while the work portions are fast, the recovery portions are seemingly over even faster.  You literally do not recover, however, you get enough of a break that you can complete another surge.

But enough talk, here’s the dirt:

This is a 5×1000 workout I did in October (I’m using this to compare because I’ve only done 800s this cycle and they compare even less favorably than this one).  My HR for the workout portion averaged 177 and hit 187 Max.  I spent 12:33 at 183.  It was 20:10 of hard running.

Here are today’s Billats (30sec on,30sec off)x20.  I started them at mile 6.75 of an 11-miler.  My HR for the workout portion averaged 181, hit 188Max and I spent 14:48 at 183.  It was 10 minutes of hard running.  Do you see?  I spent more time “in the zone” for 1/2 the amount of hard running as regular intervals! Wow.

Funny thing was, I had a preconceived notion that it couldn’t be as good a workout since 10 minutes sounds so paltry.  Truth is, the recoveries end up being included in the total time since your HR doesn’t have a chance to go down much. Who’d a thunk it?

Oh, and before anyone comments on how hard it’d be to keep track of that many intervals, it’s a simple matter of programming 30/30 or just 30 seconds into your Garmin or Ironman-type watch and setting it to repeat 20 or 40 times.  Easy schmeasy.

Before I close, I wanted to update you on my resting HR after the whole quitting-pot-heart-rate-escalation phenomena.  About a week and half ago, over 4 months since I quit, it finally, finally hit my old normal HR again.  I’m really shocked at how long it was affected but utterly relieved that it’s back to good ole 48, flirting on 47.  Took long enough.

I finally took everyone’s advice today – I put the HR monitor strap in a storage box under the bed and immediately felt better for it.  However, I still was dissatisfied because I am someone who needs to know Why.  Why was my HR higher these past couple months?  I was near admitting I must be overtrained, though I didn’t fit any of the signs.  I just needed a reason for it and tonight, I found it.

I was looking at the calendar and figuring out when the disparity started.  It was soon after my last Half, the PDR.  OK, so did I blow a heart fuse in that race?  No.  Did I start taking a new supplement?  A new allergy drug?  No.  What I did was, on Sept. 27th, one week after that race, I quit smoking pot.

Spending some quality time with my good friend Google tonight, I learned that right after smoking  pot, your HR becomes elevated for the next couple hours or so, that’s commonly known.  But what isn’t so commonly known is that if you’re a chronic user, which I’m embarrassed to say I was, it has the opposite effect.  It lowers your HR, not right after smoking but all the time.

Presented with excerpts from books and medical studies that finally answered my question Why, I’m finally able to put the overtraining fear to bed, that wasn’t it at all.  This study in particular focuses on marijuana users after a month of monitored abstinence and has this to say in the Results section (I’ll make it green in honor of weed):

“Heart rate for the marijuana subjects tested at 28 to 30 days after admission was significantly greater than the values obtained within 72 hours of admission.“

The average rise in resting HR after a month of being clean was 10 beats (8 for the Light users, 12 for the Heavys).  That’s a lot! And it explains everything.

While I’m being honest here – because what the hell, maybe somebody else can benefit – aside from one two-month break, I’ve been a pothead the whole time I’ve been running.  I should qualify that because I never actually ran stoned (well, I did once and didn’t like it), but it was an evening activity that I enjoyed for a long, long time.  I would say I qualify as a chronic user because I did it most every night, though using that study, I’d have been considered a “light” user by the quantity I took.

The funny thing is, I had made a jokey mention of it to my Sub3:20 friends a few weeks ago, thinking that getting off pot could have contributed to the HR weirdness, but I only meant it in the psychological way that not having a stress outlet might make me more anxiety-ridden, not that there would be a real physiological thing going on.

I only wish I’d have been into HR stuff last year when I was prepping for Steamtown.  I took a pot break back then too but only wore my monitor once throughout that whole cycle, so there’s no data to compare, maybe I would have figured it out sooner. No matter, I won’t have to do this again.  I want to be a the best runner I can be and smoking will never help, so I’m off the stuff for good.  OK, maybe an occasional party toke, but no more pothead Flo. Tense Flo is where it’s at from now on! Just kidding. No I’m not.  I hope I am, this tense shit is for the birds.

Due to the forecast (windy tomorrow) I switched up my week a bit.  Yesterday was an 8 mile progression, which was a pleasure since for months now, short runs have been relegated to recovery, so it was nice to put a little energy into it.  I started with an 8:58 then got down to a couple 7:40s, so average was 8:17.

Today was my final continuous GMP run – 14 miles with 10MP.  Weather report for the day was 56 degrees, cloudy with 10mph wind.  Carried my small handheld and took a gel at mile 7, just to check that I wouldn’t choke at pace.  Avg for the total run 7:51.

I wisely removed the HR data window from my Garmin so I had no idea what was going on till I got home. The run itself was fine, the MP miles weren’t an easy glide, but then they’re not expected to be at this point.  In fact, that was another thing I enjoyed reading in Jaymee Marty’s blog -  down the page you’ll see her observation on GMP runs and how she once had a coach who told her they should feel very easy yet they never were, giving her unnecessary mental baggage she carried with her for a while.

Anyway, it wasn’t easy but it wasn’t super hard either.  The cool part turns out to be the HR data, of all things (this is why I don’t ditch it completely, there’s still useful info to be found).  Yes, I’m still elevated on whole by about 5bpm, but here’s the deal.  I did another MP run back in September, which I’d somehow forgotten about.  It was 14 miles with 8 at GMP.  Both today and September’s run averaged 7:27 for the MP miles. (not by design, btw, I’m still targeting 7:30s)

The run in September averaged 76% HRR for the first mile and finished at 83.4%, so it rose 7.4% during the run.  Today’s run however, averaged 82% in the first mile but finished at 83% – a 1% rise.  And it actually was highest on the 2nd and 3rd mile, so it went down from there.   This is progress.  In full disclosure, I should mention that September’s run was 10 degrees warmer at 66, but I don’t think that speaks for today’s lovely flat profile.

Anyway, glad it’s done.  Aside from some progression runs, the rest of my workouts aren’t too challenging from here on in (can’t say I’m sorry about that, either).  Feels great to be over the workload hump and now into calmer waters, because I really am a lazy ass at heart.

Great run today, 12.2 with 4 x .8 of hills (a.k.a. .4mi up, turnaround and repeat) then 8 fartleks at HP (2 min. on, 1 off), avg 8:22 for the run.  Coming off that final downhill made the fartlek transition so easy, since I already had the leg turnover going.  And Doggie, for the record, looks like Hudson’s usage of the term fartlek (as opposed to the untimed, freeform original definition) is pretty standard, since I saw Ryan Hall talking about doing fartleks using timed intervals to describe them, too.   So no more fartlek apologies from me.  Unless I really stink up the room.

My HR continues to stymie me, the water seemed to make a difference, but I’m still elusively avoiding my usual resting rate by a few points and it differs for my runs though the weather’s been pretty steady.  Anyway, thanks to Julie (aka Races Like A Girl), who recently posted a link to a kick-ass masters runner’s blog, Jaymee Marty: a 42 year old woman who’s training for the Olympic Trials, I found something that made me feel better about the whole HR situation.

She posted a cool list of “marathon lessons learned” from Twin Cities (where she ran a 2:46…only been running seriously for the last 5 years, too).  Number 7 in particular could have been written just for me – it’s also the only one all in bold.

7. “Don’t trust heart rate. Maybe this one should read: don’t spaz out like a monkey in the weeks leading up to the race because you all of a sudden start measuring your heart rate and it isn’t in the range the books say it should be leading you to think that you are not trained to go out and run at your goal marathon pace. Enough said.”

I have definitely been spazzing out like a monkey and to see this written before my eyes was a lovely sight. I know I’m faster than I was before the start of this cycle, I know I’m not overtrained, I know I’m hitting the workouts so…screw my heart, trust the work.

A few other juicy tidbits in Jaymee’s blog have to do with weight – at 5’5″ and 124, she’s not at all the usual waif which is very helpful for some of my fellow running gals to see, like LARunner, who has been in weight-questioning mode recently.  The takeaway from this is, you really have to test and see what works for you.  There’s no one number for everybody.

Speaking of weight, with 3 weeks to go, it’s time to get serious with my eating again.  I’ve had cookies and candy daily for the last couple months which is actually pretty cool, because it shouldn’t be too hard to lose a couple lbs before the race simply by eliminating that stuff from my diet.  I also bought cottage cheese again after a long hiatus and fruit is also back in my fridge, though I’m not a big fruit lover (who needs fruit when there are so many yummy candies and cookies in the world?) but I will be enjoying Nature’s bounty for the next few weeks.

I’m not looking to lose anything big, just a couple lbs, btw. I’m usually 117.5, though now that I’m drinking more water, I’m closer to 119.  Got no problems with either, though it’ll be fun to have that little boost if I can be 115 on raceday.

And that’s it for now. Later, sweet peeps.