9.27.08

Last night I read some info on running that was posted in a letsrun forum a while back. Apparently the info had been deleted (server upgrade or something) but someone had managed to copy all the data before that. So I was reading up on it last night, and a lot of things coincided with what I've read elsewhere. The awesome part was that it actually showed HOW to implement these processes, and WHY you should do them the way they said. Those are two big things right there. So firstly the why had scientific data, plus actually test data the guy who wrote this "Hadd" had taken. Apparently he was a coach of some sorts. The specific example he used was a man who was once training for a 2:25 marathon, and had stopped running for five years. He was previously coached by Hadd, and now wanted to get back into it.

So the story goes on, but the interesting part was how much Hadd implemented heart rate. He had a test at the beginning of the 12 week cycle, then once a month after that to see improvement. Basically you run a mile at 140, 150, 160, 170, 180 and time it. Each month this guy improved his times at those heart rates. The cool thing was how the heart rate was used on a daily basis. The theory was that if you worked TOO hard, you would be running above your optimum heart rate, and thus not improving at a gradual incline. In a sense you are running before you can crawl, and miss important changes that your body needs inbetween those stages.

Pretty awesome stuff, and a lot of it I knew, but there were also schedules an actual data I could look at to see the process for myself so I was excited. April got me a heart rate monitor for Christmas and I hadn't used it much. But this stuff made me really want to get it out, and so I'm going to be trying to use it as often as I can. I'll post more on the theories and stuff tomorrow.

Ok well I had some time and remembered tomorrow is my long run. Well after looking through the heart rate stuff, I realize that taking it easy is fine on easy days, but since I haven't done the test yet, it's kind of a guess to just follow what the other guy did. So Tuesday I'm going to head to the track and do the test. But I also need to find my max heart rate, so that might be in the books after my long run is finished tomorrow. Ok that's all. 1 hr 50 minutes, looking forward to it (but not the 80 degrees, ouch!).

4:25 pm, 75 degrees, cloudy and a few sprinkles
40:30, bf 532
avHR 144, pkHR 155