Life is an odd one. These last 3 weeks have seen me bite the bullet and to the best of my ability start to train with my HRM. That's to say I am doing most of my runs at 70% of HR but I have still had the odd tempo run!
Running to HR is odd. I'm a slow runner and this makes me slower. I've always been slow and frustrated at being slow yet now I am purposely running slower than ever before! Yet these last two weeks something has happened. I've run more.
Each week I have done 2 doubles. This means I've done about 8 sessions of exercise in 6 days. May saw me do 54m which isn't a huge amount until you realise that this is the highest running mileage I have done since Jan 2006! The last 2 weeks have also been my highest mileage this year. In fact only 4 weeks last year had higher mileage and 3 of those included races over 10m and if you exclude FLM in 2005 only 2 weeks were saw higher mileage in 2005 too.
Fetch is a wonderful thing (I can get there from work for a start meaning I blog there too!)
I always assumed that I ran 20m weeks yet Fetch says ... since Jan 2005 I have done 3 weeks of 20m+ of running or 4 when you include FLM. The truth is I've actually been running 10-15m a week with most of the last 2.5yrs seeing weeks of 10-12m and very few of 15m.
One of the reasons I started running was to lose weight. Assuming the arbitrary value of 100calories per 1m you need to run 35m a week to lose 1lb on running alone. Given I have run off on average 1200 calories a week (probably less than that actually) and eaten about 1500 extra "because I've run!" it's hardly surprising I'm the same weight now is it?!
So where am I going with all this? Well running to HR may be slow (for now ... Mr eLbee assures me I will get quicker!) but I can run more often and therefore do more miles and therefore use more calories. I've concluded that I am totally useless at restricting my food intake so therefore I have to train more. This isn't actually a bad thing as more training means more improvement in fitness, tone and ultimately speed.
The down side is I have so much washing to do! I have some lovely chaff marks from my bra and HRM (cos I tend to slouch when I run meaning it all rubs on my flab!) I have to get out of bed to exercise before work when I can or use the tready at home late when I can't train before work. I like my bed too much so this isn't ideal!
In the 3 weeks since I started training this way most of my runs have been about 14:30 pace (oh so slow and even slow on the tready when I get hot so the HR goes up more) but Friday I did a run at 13:40 pace. Could I be improving?
In a months time I have the R4L which I will run as a tempo run. My last tempo run was just short of 3m but if I can run that pace I will get a PB. My goal is to get to 30-31mins for the 5K in September and onwards and upwards from there.
I'm in training. I'm happy! I'm enjoying my running and injury free.
Long may it last!
Keep smiling folks!
Running to HR is odd. I'm a slow runner and this makes me slower. I've always been slow and frustrated at being slow yet now I am purposely running slower than ever before! Yet these last two weeks something has happened. I've run more.
Each week I have done 2 doubles. This means I've done about 8 sessions of exercise in 6 days. May saw me do 54m which isn't a huge amount until you realise that this is the highest running mileage I have done since Jan 2006! The last 2 weeks have also been my highest mileage this year. In fact only 4 weeks last year had higher mileage and 3 of those included races over 10m and if you exclude FLM in 2005 only 2 weeks were saw higher mileage in 2005 too.
Fetch is a wonderful thing (I can get there from work for a start meaning I blog there too!)
I always assumed that I ran 20m weeks yet Fetch says ... since Jan 2005 I have done 3 weeks of 20m+ of running or 4 when you include FLM. The truth is I've actually been running 10-15m a week with most of the last 2.5yrs seeing weeks of 10-12m and very few of 15m.
One of the reasons I started running was to lose weight. Assuming the arbitrary value of 100calories per 1m you need to run 35m a week to lose 1lb on running alone. Given I have run off on average 1200 calories a week (probably less than that actually) and eaten about 1500 extra "because I've run!" it's hardly surprising I'm the same weight now is it?!
So where am I going with all this? Well running to HR may be slow (for now ... Mr eLbee assures me I will get quicker!) but I can run more often and therefore do more miles and therefore use more calories. I've concluded that I am totally useless at restricting my food intake so therefore I have to train more. This isn't actually a bad thing as more training means more improvement in fitness, tone and ultimately speed.
The down side is I have so much washing to do! I have some lovely chaff marks from my bra and HRM (cos I tend to slouch when I run meaning it all rubs on my flab!) I have to get out of bed to exercise before work when I can or use the tready at home late when I can't train before work. I like my bed too much so this isn't ideal!
In the 3 weeks since I started training this way most of my runs have been about 14:30 pace (oh so slow and even slow on the tready when I get hot so the HR goes up more) but Friday I did a run at 13:40 pace. Could I be improving?
In a months time I have the R4L which I will run as a tempo run. My last tempo run was just short of 3m but if I can run that pace I will get a PB. My goal is to get to 30-31mins for the 5K in September and onwards and upwards from there.
I'm in training. I'm happy! I'm enjoying my running and injury free.
Long may it last!
Keep smiling folks!
Comments
Forgot about that-used to it now
Do you use Bodyglide?
as you know, i was running 30 plus miles a week, and not losing any weight-but by tweaking my portion sizes a bit, ive lost well over a stone-though its taken a year to get that off