Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Spin and a Sssllloooooooooowww Run

Monday night I had to dust off my bike trainer for my Tuesday morning ride. I had considered going to spin class during lunch on Tuesday, but I had a meeting scheduled during the class time. So, I had to resort to the trainer. While I don’t think I could do more than an hour on the trainer, overall it’s not too bad. Honestly, it’s the only time I have to sit and watch the news uninterrupted. The trainer is a little noisy and I don’t want to wake up the rest of the house, so I turn on the closed caption and spin away! 45 minutes on the schedule in Zone 2 with my cadence at 85+…unfortunately, I just ordered the cadence sensor for my bike and I still hadn’t figured out the whole heart-rate monitor thingy, so I had no idea of my zone or cadence. Ugh!

Lucky for me, the Hubby helped me figure out the HR monitor before my run this morning. (Yes, I realize it's not exactly rocket science!) I was hoping my Wfit peep, Julie, would be meeting me for at least a portion of the scheduled 6 miles….but, she couldn’t make it, so it was just me and the roads. (That and several rabbits, stars, the newspaper dude and a few other crazy early-morning runners.) This was another “easy” run, or as Coach typed into Training Peaks, “EASY!” run. My heart rate was supposed to be in Zone 2 (126-146) and I was supposed to maintain my easy pace per McMillan (11:29 – 11:59). For some reason, I have no problem running slower in a marathon, but I have been running my shorter runs much faster for the past couple of years. Part of that “to run faster, you have to run faster” mentality, I guess. Yes, I had easier days, but those runs were rarely over an 11 minute/mile pace (unless it was 100+ degrees outside with 100% humidity)and usually in the low 10s or maybe even the high 9s. Yes, I know you have to also run slower to get faster, but this is sooooo new to me – forcing myself to go slower than slow – and it’s hard. I had to take a couple of walk breaks to get my heart rate down and to slow my pace a bit. Overall, I never got under an average 153 HR or an average 11:28 pace. I guess I need to keep working on this. Can I just say that I am sooooo, soooo happy to have a Tempo run on my schedule next week? It's the little things!

I am soooo looking forward to getting my cadence sensor for my bike! Also, this weekend I am going to buy fins, a kickboard and some paddles – yay me! Next up, I am finally going to get a new saddle for the bike. I am still using the factory saddle and it’s time to upgrade to something more comfy! Yes, this is exactly why I am never at the mall buying trendy, cute new work clothes – all my extra $ goes toward miscellaneous tri stuff. :-)

Do you follow the suggested paces from McMillan? Do you train using your HR? How slow are your "easy" runs? Or, do you use other methods for training?

5 comments:

saroy said...

I did some slooow running as part of HR training about a year ago, and I do think it helped. Although I'm with you, it felt really slow.

The thing I don't get is HR and paces. I could run 11:29-11:59 pace but even at that, my heart rate would average around 155. To keep my HR 126-146, I'd have to "run" about 13:00 pace. They're never consistent for me.

Lisa said...

My goal is to get my 305 heart rate monitor out of the box & use it when things calm down in a few weeks for us. Sad that I've had a garmin since 2007 & never used the heart rate monitors.

Add some hills, you'll slow down. ;-)

Duckie said...

I call mine the Garmin Overlord. It beeps ruthlessly when I am doing it wrong, which is apparently most of the time. I have a cadence meter and a power tap on the "to buy" list and dread the day I have to figure those out! Good luck and great post!

Neon Blonde Runner said...

OK funny that you mentioned this because I just got my garmin hear rate monitor out for the first time. And I can't believe how slow I have to go to keep a lower heart rate. Still lots of playing around to figure out what exactly my zones are (I'm still gathering lots of data)....but I'm hoping to utilize it one day!

Andrew Opala said...

I love numbers. But this slow thing screws me up. If I start off slow ... I never can speed up.

I need to stop fully, and wait for the cyborg computer to reset before I can choose another pace.