Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Garmin made me faster?
Well I finally got my Garmin 205 on Friday. On Saturday I did my long run, 26.88 miles in 4:02:11 which gave me an average pace of 9:01. The wildest part of this is that I'd been using gmap-pedometer.com to figure out my distances prior to getting the Garmin, and my long run paces were typically in the 9:30 range, so it has me wondering which one is right? I'd love to believe that I'm faster than I thought, because, well, I would just rather be faster :-) But it does start raising some concerns about the training I've been doing, have I really put in the miles I thought? My average heart rate on the run was in line with my other long runs so I don't think I was actually running any faster. The only thing I can see having an impact was that I had the auto-pause feature turned on, which means the timer would stop at lights, cross walks and the like; not something I would usually bother with on my other runs.
In any case, it is definitely a cool gadget and once I get the various features figured out, I'm sure it will be providing this numbers geek with lots of data to analyze. I just hope they hurry up and release the Mac version of the Garmin Training Centre!
I had a session of Active Release Therapy (ART) yesterday while getting a massage. Ouch. My hamstrings are wound up quite tightly and he was trying to loosen them up. It hurt like crazy during the session, but felt OK afterwards. It was a bit tender on my run last night, thankfully it was a short, easy run.
D.
In any case, it is definitely a cool gadget and once I get the various features figured out, I'm sure it will be providing this numbers geek with lots of data to analyze. I just hope they hurry up and release the Mac version of the Garmin Training Centre!
I had a session of Active Release Therapy (ART) yesterday while getting a massage. Ouch. My hamstrings are wound up quite tightly and he was trying to loosen them up. It hurt like crazy during the session, but felt OK afterwards. It was a bit tender on my run last night, thankfully it was a short, easy run.
D.
Friday, March 24, 2006
Garmin Geek
Well, I did it. I bought a Garmin 205 today. I remember a while ago when they first came out I thought they were interesting, but I never really saw them as that great with the issues around tree cover and buildings and losing signal. That, and the fact they never had support for the Mac OS. Well, the 205 is supposed to have a better receiver for the signal under tree cover and in urban canyons. Plus, Garmin is releasing Mac software. For the time being I'm without software so all my data will be temporarily stored on a testing system at the office. I still see myself planning out routes on gmap-pedometer and then using the 205 to track my paces during the run. After this weekends runs, I'll have a better sense of what all the fuss has been about for the past while. D.
Sunday, March 12, 2006
7 more marathon runs
So yesterday's run was essentially a marathon in the snow, slush and puddles with 5 miles of hills thrown in for fun. 26.7 miles in 4:11:28; yikes. At about 3:54 into it, nearly done, I just lost it. I bonked bad. I was reduced to a walk/shuffle-run for the last 17 minutes. The night before my dinner and dessert might not have been the optimal fuel. I have a sneaking suspicion that the cheesecake wasn't the best pre-run fuel, but damn does it taste good! Thanks for that Natalie!
Looking at my training plan, I have 7 more runs planned that are all at least the marathon distance. WTF? :-) Mind you, I'm not racing them, I'm just trying to keep a steady pace, around 9:30-9:45 min/mile; not quite my marathon PR pace of 8:00.
My body is holding up quite well to the training volume, which is making me a happy camper. I may have found a new injury, but massage seems to be helping manage it.
I had an encouraging exchange with a fellow blackfooter today. She's doing the 50 mile version that day and we've been trading training stories; it's a good feeling to know someone else going through the same rigors. It's going to be an awesome day on May 27th.
D.
Looking at my training plan, I have 7 more runs planned that are all at least the marathon distance. WTF? :-) Mind you, I'm not racing them, I'm just trying to keep a steady pace, around 9:30-9:45 min/mile; not quite my marathon PR pace of 8:00.
My body is holding up quite well to the training volume, which is making me a happy camper. I may have found a new injury, but massage seems to be helping manage it.
I had an encouraging exchange with a fellow blackfooter today. She's doing the 50 mile version that day and we've been trading training stories; it's a good feeling to know someone else going through the same rigors. It's going to be an awesome day on May 27th.
D.
Sunday, March 05, 2006
Long Run Pacing
How do you figure out your pacing for a distance you've never ran? In my head, I had the notion of 10 minute miles for doing the 100k race, which would give me a finish time around 10h:20m. Then, I discovered the course record pace is 9:16 min/mile for 9h:36m, so I'm starting to re-think what my race pace will be. I have been training at roughly a 9:30 pace for my long runs (I did 31.24 miles yesterday at an average of 9:25), with some tempo runs as fast as 7:15 for 5 miles.
I really am struggling with the whole concept of pace over the distance. I do feel confident that I can hold a steady pace over time, for example I ran the first 5.5 miles yesterday at 9:23 and the last 5.5 at 9:43 with 20 miles in between, but the trick is at what pace to start at? The hilly nature of the course makes it tougher to guess-timate so I have this feeling that the first 25k loop of the course will be the only way to know. I plan to run with my Garmin(assuming the 205 has shipped by then) for as long as the battery will last.
Ok, this is a rambling brain dump. Time to wrap it up until I've got some more concrete thinking on this done.
D.
I really am struggling with the whole concept of pace over the distance. I do feel confident that I can hold a steady pace over time, for example I ran the first 5.5 miles yesterday at 9:23 and the last 5.5 at 9:43 with 20 miles in between, but the trick is at what pace to start at? The hilly nature of the course makes it tougher to guess-timate so I have this feeling that the first 25k loop of the course will be the only way to know. I plan to run with my Garmin(assuming the 205 has shipped by then) for as long as the battery will last.
Ok, this is a rambling brain dump. Time to wrap it up until I've got some more concrete thinking on this done.
D.
