I've never had a training programme of any sort until going along to the gym, Strength & Performance. I'm working on strength and conditioning stuff down there - with the aim of being stronger and having more stamina for running. It feels like it's working, and running does seem to be feeling more natural now. However, I want to improve more, so I've arranged for a running programme to be written for me. To get things moving I needed to complete a couple of tests:
Heart rate threshold test: warm up, 6x50m sprints (at about 80% effort), 15mins evenly paced running but as fast as possible. The test was as much mental as physical. I had no car on the day I did the test so my nice straight line test along the Longdendale trail was switched to a several-times-round the 200m track at Regra - easily accessible on foot from home, but tedious to say the least as I went round, and round, and round, and....! Result - average HR is 170bpm.
My HR zones have been calculated from this.
Next up - a 60min run, flat course and keeping within HR zone 1. For me that's between 111-145bpm. With my garmin forerunner set up I headed down to the Longdendale Trail. I was joined by Tim and a few friends - a couple of which are fairly new to running so the pace was ideal for them. Leaving the car park we ran in a straight line down the trail for 30 mins, turned round and back again. Nothing exciting, just a steady pace. It was lovely to have friends join me - I suspect that if my first attempt at running for an hour within the HR zone was solo then boredom might have kicked in. As it was, we chatted and ran and it was great. I'd set my time alert on the garmin to bleep every 5 minutes - as I'm trying to work on my running form I'm using the alert to bring my focus back to the sub-task in hand. On this run it was to work on less heel striking, more midfoot strike. So for about 30sec-1min every 5mins I'd do some technique practice. I can see that all the low HR zone work I've got over the next month will give me ample opportunity to continue working on my form.
Garmin track was sent off and in return I got myself a schedule for a months worth of running (plus one turbo session and my two regular strength&conditioning sessions). My programme officially starts on Monday next week, but being keep to get into the routine I'm copying the first week's sessions this week. So far all is good. Setting my HR alerts is keeping me more-or-less within the right zone and I'm heading out on the runs with some aspect of technique to think about, work on and absorb as I do my steady plods.
The weather was atrocious yesterday, and perhaps without the training programme I wouldn't have run. But I have one, and I did. I ran to Old Glossop, up to Mossy Lea and continued up Doctors Gate towards the foot bridge. I paused to take this photo on my phone, though it was too wet to get the phone out of its waterproof pouch I think the photo reflects what I could see most of the time fairly accurately:
 |
| Looking east towards Doctors Gate |
Although I got soaked through it was a good run. I felt strong and had enough in me to continue at the end - exactly the point of my training. Plus, I got to see a great show by two curlews - buzzing each other and swooping really low by the path. The sound they make is just so unusual, makes me smile every time I hear them. So I ran in the rain, got hailed on a little, blown about a lot in the wind, splashed through oodles of puddles, and had a great time.
No comments:
Post a Comment