Women's Heart Rate Monitor

Heart Rate Monitor Running Diary – Week Four (Part 1)

My first run of the week was five miles and I shaved a full second off the time of my previous run. Strike up the band

Due to some time pressure, I shuffled around my workouts a bit and did my tempo run on day two. My plan was to run two miles at 80% MHR (maximum heart rate). I had no idea what pace I should start with, but decided on a conservative 6.5mph. It took almost 1.4 miles before I reached my target heart rate, so I decided to stretch the run to three miles. This meant that I would still run nearly two miles at my target rate despite starting out a bit too conservatively. My speed came down fairly rapidly during the third mile and I finished the run at 5.6mph in a time of 29:05. I was pretty happy with that.

On day three I reverted to my usual recovery pace for a four mile run. I started at 6mph and finished at 4.6mph with split times of 10:10, 21:05, 32:55, and 45:33.

Progress is slow at the moment, but I know the improvement will come.  When it does, you will be the first to know on the Women’s Heart Rate Monitor blog.

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Heart Rate Monitor Running Diary – Week Three (Part 2 and Summary)

My final run of the week was six miles at recovery pace. I started at 6mph and completed the run at 4.4mph. Although the first mile was marginally faster, I was aware that I was slower than on my previous run from the third mile onwards, and this was reflected in a slower performance overall. It took 01:11:55 to run the full six miles. The split times are shown in the summary below.

Next week I intend to increase the mileage and include a short, moderately hard run.  You can follow my progress on the Women’s Heart Rate Monitor blog.

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Is Running a Natural Cure for Recurrent Headaches and Migraine?

I have suffered from headaches of varying severity throughout my life. The worst ones were the real blinding migraines accompanied by tunnel vision, bright auras and nausea. I’ve put these down to a number of different factors.

I noticed, for example, that changes in environment (such as moving office workspace location at work) seemed to trigger some of the worst attacks over a period of a few weeks. I mitigated this by trying to be as near as possible to natural light wherever I was moved.

Not surprisingly, I have always considered alcohol to be the major contributor to many of my headaches. However, they continued for a period after I quit drinking alcohol, albeit to a lesser extent. After researching why this could be, I tried eliminating drinks that contained the chemical Aspartame. It was at this point that my headaches stopped almost entirely! Needless to say, I was convinced that Aspartame was a large contributory factor.

Since then, and for the last few years I have suffered very few headaches, and no blinding migraines at all. So it appeared to me that all of my conclusions were correct – until recently.

Around three months ago I started getting headaches again – two or three days each week. The migraines were starting to reappear too. On the scale of things, the migraines were relatively mild, but they were increasing in severity and still incapacitated me for a couple of hours. I visited my family doctor for blood tests, but he could subsequently offer little help beyond what I had heard in the past.

Then the penny dropped.

The recent spell of headaches had commenced at roughly the same time that I had stopped running and was no longer taking part in any form of physical activity. Could it be that a lack of exercise was the cause of the headaches? Even my partner commented that it may not be pure coincidence. Thinking back to the time when I began avoiding drinks containing Aspartame, it was also the same time that I began exercising! For sure, I have subsequently consumed drinks containing the chemical from time to time with no noticeable adverse effect relating to headaches (notwithstanding the possibility of other health detriment – I do still try to avoid artificial sweeteners).

Just under three weeks ago I resumed running and have continued with the activity for four days each week. Since then I haven’t suffered a single headache – not even a mild one! Needless to say, I am utterly convinced now that there is a link between an inactive lifestyle and headaches. Previously, I had never heard of the possibility that such an association existed. Surely there must be some sort of research into this phenomenon? Well, yes there is.

A study was published as recently as November/December 2008 in “Headache” entitled “Socio-Economic Factors, Lifestyle, and Headache Disorders – A Population-Based Study in Sweden”. The study was based on 43,770 respondents to a postal survey questionnaire to look for factors associated with recurrent headaches and migraines. In the results and conclusion they state

“Physically inactive subjects were more likely to suffer from headache disorders than physically active subjects.”

“Of lifestyle factors, physical inactivity was strongly associated with headache disorders independent of economic and psychosocial factors.”

This is a complete revelation to me, and I find it one of the most exciting pieces of news that I have found. There is nothing more frustrating than to suffer severe recurrent headaches that are beyond your control. However, I firmly believe that I now have some control and have it within my power to prevent my life being blighted by migraine.

If ever there was a reason to take up some form of physical activity and make it part of your lifestyle, then this has to be up there with the best. I hope you will join me in taking control of your life. I have tips, advice and a training diary to show you how I implement heart rate monitor training into a structured running program, so that you can try it for yourself. You can find my articles on the Women’s Heart Rate Monitor blog. And before you ask….. yes it’s okay for men to follow the methods too!

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Heart Monitor Running Diary – Week Three (Part 1)

My cold only lasted a few days and had very little impact, so I didn’t need to hold-back the training.  I started the new training week with a four mile run and showed improvements across the distance. The split times for each mile were 10:31, 21:56, 34:06 and 46:46.

The day after I ran five miles starting at 5.9mph with gradual reductions to 4.6mph (using the methods I have outlined previously). This resulted in further improvements to my split times – 10:25, 21:25, 33:00, 45:28, and 58:22. Overall, this was more than three minutes faster than the five mile run just a few days before.

Day three was a rest day, then on day four I trained exactly the same as day two. I held the starting pace for more than 0.6 miles (approximately one kilometre) before starting to gradually reduce the speed to keep my heart rate at my recovery ceiling. I’ll therefore increase my starting pace to 6mph for my next run, which will be six miles distance. The split times today were 10:18, 21:04, 32:45, 45:04 and 58:00.

The progress is encouraging and I’m starting to look forward to running some races in the future. I’m hoping to run a spring Marathon next year. It would be good if I could be ready for a half-marathon before the end of this year. I’ll see how the training develops over the next few weeks.

Hopefully you can begin to see why I have emphasized how motivational it is to train with a heart rate monitor, along with keeping records. You can continue to follow my progress on the Women’s Heart Rate Monitor blog.

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Heart Rate Monitor Running Diary – Week Two (Part 4 and Summary)

I’m pleased to say that my cold does not seem to be getting worse and is remaining very mild. I’ve written an article on the Women’s Heart Rate Monitor blog that discusses the subject of “should I run when I have a cold”, so you can see how I decide whether I should continue training.

I started the run at the same speed as my previous run and could soon see that I was responding better to the training. Not only was my first mile faster, but also I ran the fastest times for each of the subsequent mile splits. I proceeded with my plan to run the full five miles.

My split times were 10:41, 22:17, 34:27, 47:29, and 01:01:37. It is good to see a couple of minutes reduction in my four mile time in the space of a week. The times are still slow for me, but I’m aware that it will take me four months or more to get back to my previous fitness level, and longer still to get back to my best.

Here is the summary of my training this week:

My plan for the coming week is to run four recovery runs for a total of twenty miles, and with my longest run being six miles. I’m tempted to throw in a hard session, but will hold-off until I am ready. The improvements are coming – it just takes time, patience and a plan.

Technorati Tags: Heart Rate Monitor, heart rate monitor running, Running Diary, Running Plan, Running Program, Womens Heart Rate Monitor

Heart Rate Monitor Training – Should I run during illness such as a Cold or Flu?

If you have been following my recent diary entries for Women’s Heart Rate Monitor, you will have seen that I recently caught a cold and continued with my training program. You may have wondered if this was a wise thing to do. So let’s take a look at some of the advice that I follow (most of the time – I’m not perfect).

The good news for people that take moderate exercise each day is that studies have found that this appears to minimize illness. Moderate exercise is generally taken to be around thirty minutes per day, and seems to be the most often quoted figure. Anecdotally, many people who exercise regularly feel that they get less illness in general, and recover quicker when they do get ill.

However, it should be borne in mind that harder and longer exercise can make it more likely that you may contract a cold, particularly if you make a sudden increase in your mileage or intensity to a level that your body is not used to. You should use your heart rate monitor to ensure that you do not over-train and that you balance hard training with rest and recovery. Following a long, hard run (e.g. in the latter stages of marathon training) it is best to avoid people that have colds, because the immune system may be suppressed for up to eight hours following the run.

Given that exercise may minimize the likelihood of contracting a cold – it still doesn’t eliminate the risk. The fact is that most of us will suffer some form of cold or respiratory illness in a given year, no matter what precautions we may take. People who run regularly are least likely to want to stop when illness strikes. If a race is looming, many may be tempted to continue training when really they should be resting and allowing their immune system to work at its most efficient.

Now, when the inevitable does happen and you contract a cold or flu, what should you do? Well, for a genuine flu, the simple answer is that you should rest – and frankly you will be unable to do anything else. However, a common cold may not necessarily mean that you need to skip training. The generally accepted rule is that it is okay to run if your cold symptoms are confined above the neck. So, if you have a runny nose, sore throat, mild headache and sneezing, you may run if you want to. Use your heart rate monitor to gauge how fast you should be running. I have found that my heart rate is persistently higher when I have a cold (by as much as ten beats per minute!), which means that I must run slower than usual to achieve my goal for the run.

Regardless of your planned running intensity for the session, you should start out easy to assess how you feel. Don’t ignore signals such as increasing pain in the head, as it would be better to abort the run and get some rest. Personally, I will generally avoid high-intensity training for a day or two if I believe that I can shake-off the cold quicker. Nonetheless, I have made the mistake of continuing on a long run when a cold was waning, only to have it come back with a vengeance.

If the symptoms of your cold are below the neck – such as a deep hacking cough, vomiting, aching muscles, diarrhoea – then you really should not run. It is far better to rest and recover from the illness, rather than run and prolong the illness or even make it worse. There is no rule that says you have to play Russian-Roulette with your life in order to stick to a training schedule. Remind yourself why it is that you are doing this activity in the first place. On your list of reasons, I’ll venture that “so that I can suffer longer and more frequent illness” is not in the top ten.

Unfortunately, it’s true that you will lose endurance very quickly during illness, and the comeback can be quite slow to start with. The danger is that you may throw yourself into hard training too soon, possibly causing a relapse. My advice is to start back with a recovery run, rather than trying to catch-up by recommencing with a hard run. During the run you will almost certainly find yourself running slower at your recovery ceiling. Depending on how severe and prolonged your illness was, you may need to have extra rest days and steer-clear of hard runs for a while. Build up gradually until you are back to full strength. You should find yourself naturally running faster again during each run at the same level of effort. If improvements do not occur, then consider having extra rest. If you missed a week of training due to illness, then you should expect to spend a week or two to build-up to the pre-illness level. I personally find that I need twice as long as the length of training absence in order to fully recover (i.e. two weeks build-up for one week missed training).

Another good use of your heart rate monitor is to take your resting heart rate regularly. When you know your normal resting rate, you will be able to see whether your current resting heart rate is significantly above this level. This can be a useful indicator of illness or over-training.

In summary, if your cold symptoms are above the neck it is okay for your training to proceed with caution. Use your heart rate monitor to check how you are responding to training and adjust your intensity level accordingly. Following an illness, give yourself time to get-back to your pre-illness level. You have a lifetime of running ahead of you – a few days or weeks of rest is a good thing and not something that should be avoided at any cost.

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Heart Rate Monitor Running Diary – Week Two (Part 3)

It didn’t take too long before I found out the reason why I had to run slower during my last run.  That same evening I could feel that I was coming down with a cold.  This is the price I have to pay for having two toddlers that bring home a cocktail selection of the latest bugs that are doing the rounds.

So, the good news is that the poor performance did have a good reason after all.  The bad news will be if the cold gets bad enough to stop my training in its tracks, though hopefully it won’t come to that.

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Heart Rate Monitor Running Diary – Week Two (Part 2)

I started the run on day four at 5.8mph. I reached my recovery ceiling before I had covered a half-mile, so I will not be increasing the starting speed again next time. I never increase my starting speed unless I can cover at least 0.5 miles without having to drop the speed. It’s a personal thing – not science.

My first mile was completed in 10:47, which was a little faster than on day two, but this was a hollow victory. All of the subsequent miles were slower and I finished at only 4.2mph. The split times were 10:47, 22:29, 35:18 and 49:18. Ultimately this was almost a minute slower, which was disappointing.

I don’t believe that the overall result was due to starting too fast. Four miles is far enough not to be affected by a short burst during the early run. I know from experience that anomalies happen in any training program, and this may be one of those anomalies. Or perhaps it was my previous run that was the “blip”. You can send yourself mad trying to analyze what went “wrong” sometimes, so there’s little point in trying to figure it out unless it’s part of a broader trend.

All being well, my next run will be five miles and will also commence at 5.8mph.

You can follow my progress in the Women’s Heart Rate Monitor blog.

I am also planning some more articles, so feel free to let me know if there are any related subjects you would like to see covered.

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Heart Rate Monitor Running Diary – Week Two (Part 1)

One thing I didn’t mention in my previous diary articles was what I drink during my training. The simple answer is water. Plain water – nothing fancy. There is no need for Gatorade, Isotonic Drinks, Carbo Gels or any other other aids during runs of this length. I’ll cover how and when I do use these as my training progresses.

Also, I tend to drink more when I am treadmill training. I have a bottle of water to hand and take regular sips throughout the run. On average, I take a mouthful or two of water at approximately mile intervals during these runs. However, I find that on outdoor runs of less than an hour, I seldom feel the need for any liquid refreshment at all (assuming I’m adequately hydrated before setting out on the run).

I started the second week with a three mile run on a flat treadmill (0.0 incline), sticking to the principles of heart monitor training outlined in week one. I began at a slightly higher pace of 5.5mph and made reductions when necessary, finishing the run at 4.4mph. My split times for each mile were 11:03, 22:54 and 35:48, which was an improvement.

The following day I ran four miles, following the same pattern. My split times were 10:56, 22:24, 34:55, and 48:23. I was holding my pace well during the first three miles, but had to reduce speed a bit faster in the final mile. However, I still finished at 4.3mph and was nearly a minute-and-a-half faster than my previous four mile run. While the improvements are being made at this rate, I am happy to stick to the program and continue with straightforward recovery runs.

Day three will be a rest day, so I’ll report back in two or three days with more updates on the Women’s Heart Rate Monitor blog.

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Heart Monitor Running Diary – Week One (Days 6 and 7) with summary

As planned, day five was a rest day.

Day six was my final training day in this first week and my longest run so far – four miles. Please remember that this is a comeback week after a lay-off. It is not a schedule I would recommend to someone who is just starting out with running. I intend to write some more beginner’s articles for the Women’s Heart Rate Monitor blog in the near future.

I started the run a little faster at 5.3mph. I maintained above 5mph throughout the first mile and clocked-in at 11:29. The temperature was much the same as on my previous run, so now I was getting a more direct comparison of my efforts.

I’m quite pleased with progress in this first week – following the initial dissapointment of the first run. The split times for each mile were 11:29, 23:26, 36:07, 49:47 and I finished the run at 4.3mph. My average heart rate was 150bpm. In a matter of only five days, my times have improved nicely throughout the run. I’m now running faster at the end of four miles than I was at the end of two miles earlier in the week.

Can you see how motivating this style of training can be? I am running with exactly the same amount of effort, and my speed has increased measurably. This has to be better than just turning up and going through the motions of running a fixed time or distance without really knowing whether fitness is improving, doesn’t it? Of course, you may personally experience slower or faster gains, but the point is that you will know that you are improving and that the effort is worthwhile. This is exactly what turned me into a person that enjoys running.

Day seven was another rest day, so here’s a summary of the first week of training.

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