Resting rate

It's a rest day today so I have a few minutes to blog instead of running. My dad has a nifty blood-pressure machine at home and while I was visiting over the weekend, he sat me down to do a few readings. I was a little puzzled -- yes, my blood pressure is pretty normal.

The number that surprised me was my heart rate -- it kept on reading in the 44 beats per minute range. Later when I got home, I hooked in my Garmin heart-rate monitor and found that it reached a low of about 43 beats, and that was only after lying in bed for a few minutes. Just checked again today after dinner and it quickly went down to 45.

This is quite surprising. I know that the average male has a heart rate of anywhere from 60 - 80 beats per minute. The more sedentary you are, the higher it is. According to this article (and there are many on the net) fit endurance runners usually have heart rates of between 50 and 60 beats per minute.

While some doctors would be alarmed by a low heart rate, I know that it signals among runners that you are getting fit, that your heart has to work less to pump the necessary blood to your body. Elite endurance athletes are known to have very low rates -- Lance Armstrong famously is known for his 32 beats per minute (and a sky-high VO2 Max, and a bigger than average heart, but who's counting).

Last year, I believe my resting heart rate was as low as 52 -- so what does the new numbers tell me? Maybe I'm becoming more fit? Maybe this Pfitzinger training cycle is starting to pay off.. Maybe I should wait until the V02 Max workouts to see how things go? In any case, it's a good sign. I don't know if this is a factor, but I have been shedding excess pounds the past six weeks as I look to get down to a good race weight (the same weight I had two years ago when I set many PBs). I have 5 to 8 pounds to lose and i'm confident i'll get there by mid to late September. I'm eating healthier, i'm running more and i'm feeling strong...

Marine Corps Marathon: 13 weeks to go

Hit the mileage goal right on the dot this week: 46 miles or 74 kilometres. The great news is that it's recovery week next week. The even better news is that it's going to heat up in temperature over that time. Here's the week in recap

Monday: Rest
Tuesday: 9 miles with 4 miles LT (14.5K)
Wednesday: 5 miles recovery (8K)
Thursday: 10 miles general aerobic (16K)
Friday: Rest
Saturday: 17 miles medium-long (27.4K)
Sunday: 5 miles recovery (8K)

Weekly mileage: 74K (46 miles)
Time run: 6:28:46
Year to date: 1,343K (834.5 miles)

It's interesting to note that last year at this time, I'd done 1,426K (886 miles). I'm pretty confident i'm on course to match last year's mileage total.

The week to come:
Recovery week
Monday: Rest
Tuesday: 8 miles with 8x100m
Wednesday: 5 miles
Thursday: 8 miles
Friday: Rest
Saturday: 4 miles
Sunday: 12 miles

Medium-long?

Wednesday: Did a 5 mile recovery run in about 43:07.

Thursday: It's even getting earlier. Started my run at 4:36 a.m. (ouch) and did 10 miles on the waterfront in 1:27:35 with average pace of 5:26Ks (8:44 miles)



Today: So I read the schedule and Pfitzinger describes today's 17 mile run as 'medium-long'.... Okay.. to me, it's looong. I haven't done a run this long since last fall. It was humid but a cool 18 degrees when I started the run at 7:30 a.m. heading west on the waterfront. The out-and-back route is about 11 miles, so I decided to add a few loops to the route so I would be able to end the run close to the market, where I could buy bread and other groceries.

Again, I didn't run with my heart-rate monitor, but I did ensure I kept the pace to a reasonable slower pace. I ran a negative split -- the first 8 miles were done in 1:09:12 and the next 8 in 1:06:58. Total running time for 17.04 miles was 2:24:27.

I was scheduled to do the 20K 'race' tomorrow in the Beaches, but now i've opted to skip it. It didn't make a lot of sense to out an out-and-back only to end up 10K from home. Plus, it isn't a timed race. One option is to make it out there and do a 10K run... we'll see.

LT run

Today it was 9 miles with 4 at lactate threshold (half marathon race pace). I still dread these runs and they'll only get harder. So the plan was to run 3.5 kilometres (about two miles) then do 6.5 kilometres (4 miles) at LT. These LTs are getting me nervous...

Here are the splits

1K: 5:03Ks
2K: 5:08Ks
3K: 5:01Ks
4K: 4:33Ks (7:20 mile pace)
5K: 4:23Ks (7:04 mile pace)
6K: 4:27Ks (7:10 mile pace)
7K: 4:26Ks (7:09 mile pace)
8K: 4:24Ks (7:05 mile pace)
9K: 4:30Ks (7:16 mile pace)
10K: 4:32Ks (7:17 mile pace)
11K: 5:58Ks
12K: 5:15Ks
13K: 5:18Ks
14K: 5:01Ks
15K: 5:05Ks pace

I actually did a little more than four miles. The first kilometre (5K) was a bit fast at 4:23 and I had to force myself to slow down a tad. As a result, I think I pushed myself a little harder than I wanted to. This would have to be a hard pace but one I can keep up over 13 miles. The last two kilometres were done a bit slower and I was flagging. Next time, I have to stick closer to the 4:30Ks or 7:15 miles... That is, unless my fitness shows that I can go faster.

Racing to the music

The Globe and Mail had an article today about the racing while wearing headphone debate. Of course, it caused a lot of debate (some dumb, some reasonable).

The general two sided debate (boiled way down) goes like this:

Pro: 'Running with music helps keep me going'
Con: 'Aren't you a running purist?'

I'm somewhere in between. When I just started doing long runs of more than 1.5 hours years ago, I found that I needed the music to keep me going, it was something that kept my mind off the effort taken to run. Later, as I improved, it became a nice way to zone out and have your personal space, but not necessarily needed to help push myself.

I now do not run with music, especially during my marathon training. I find that I do want to listen to my body. I need to hear myself breathe, I need to concentrate on hitting my strides and hitting a good cadence. I don't think I'm a running purist by doing so, since I make the (technological) concession of running with my GPS and I do monitor pace and distance. I'm definately a slave to my Garmin.

I do agree with the safety angle: Just this weekend, on trails in DC, I had countless cyclists call out 'On your left' as they passed by and I always tend to stick to the right side of paths to let them get by. I had a few times when I was running with headphones when I couldn't hear cyclists, which is why I now ban myself from wearing headphones on trails with bike traffic. On races (the subject of the article), I could never run and race hard with music... but that's just me.

I do think that there's something to be said for running a long run without a soundtrack, with just the world whizzing by on cars, bikes, buses. It's just you, pushing yourself forward, feeling the effort with each step. During those runs, I've had countless eureka moments or moments of clarity after seeing the beauty of the outdoors, sights and sounds that I'm glad I didn't miss.