So, given that there is no reason why you cannot wear the monitor, let’s consider the pro’s and con’s of wearing it during a race.

Advantages

• Monitoring your heart rate can ensure that you do not start off at an excessively fast pace. Running just ten percent too fast can destroy a marathon attempt. How would you know that you are working a little too hard without some form of monitoring?

• During the race it can help you to maintain an even effort. You could adjust your pace on uphills and downhills to maintain a consistent heart rate.

• You can improve your chances of finishing a long race by controlling your effort, rather than trusting your instincts on the day.

• You can review what went right/wrong in the race afterwards, which can help improve future training plans. Did you finish strongly? Did you really maintain an even effort throughout the race?

• Your pace will be adjusted to compensate for environmental factors and the topography of an unknown course. The weather and temperature can have a profound effect on your heart rate.

Disadvantages

• While the monitor strap may be comfortable enough for a short race, it could lead to chafing and soreness during longer runs. It would be wise to wear the chest strap during your training runs to ensure that you will not have any surprises in your target race.

• You could become a slave to the monitor. You could spend more time looking at your watch than enjoying the experience of racing.

• Your heart rate during competition will be affected by race-day nerves and excitement. This should settle more in a longer race.

Assuming you decide to wear your heart rate monitor in a race, then what heart rate should you be aiming for? If you have been following my other articles on heart rate monitor training, then you will run your recovery runs under 70% MHR. This is so that you can run daily and maintain your glycogen levels for harder training, and of course to be prepared for a target race. Now that you are about to run the race, then you will run at a faster pace. The maximum target heart rate would depend on the race distance and your running experience.

A very short race of up to a mile could be run at 98% MHR. However, a more realistic marathon target would be 75% MHR – just a little faster than your typical recovery run. In fact, for a first time marathon it would probably be wise to keep to your recovery rate (70% MHR) until you have covered around 20 miles, then consider increasing pace for the end of the marathon. This way you would be more likely to finish the race with a smile! For races of other distances, the heart rate should unsurprisingly fall between these extremes. Say 80% MHR for a half-marathon, 85% MHR for a 10K and 90% MHR for a 5K.

In spite of wearing a monitor, it is easy to make the mistake of believing that you can run at a higher heart rate than you have planned. You may feel great during the early miles and convince yourself that a “few beats” faster heart rate will not matter. Unfortunately, I know from experience that payback is likely in the latter stages of the race. I have struggled during the last miles of a number of races where I have simply set out too fast because I felt good. Believe me, it is more enjoyable to finish strongly than to finish slowly! It is no coincidence that I subsequently run a course faster overall when I consciously slow down in the early miles. It is fun to sprint past people who are crawling to the finish line, it is not so much fun to end a race like a zombie.

Having finished the race, you can use the experience to adjust what you do in a future race. For example, if you finished a marathon feeling great having maintained a 70% MHR, then perhaps you could consider running closer to 75%MHR in your next effort.

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In any long-term running program it is inevitable that there will be days where you will simply not want to do the scheduled run.  Today was such a day for me.

It was the day of my weekly long run, and I awoke early to do a pre-breakfast run. I was dressed and rearing to go when my son awoke crying from a nightmare. No amount of comforting would get him back to sleep, so reluctantly I got changed and sat down with him to eat breakfast and watch TV for a while.

I don’t know exactly why, but when it came to restarting the run a couple of hours later, I just didn’t feel as ready as I had done first thing in the morning. I had a bit of a tickle in the throat, so maybe I was coming down with a cold? Maybe my breakfast hadn’t settled? Who knows. I put it to the back of my mind and began the run.

I had planned to do nine miles at recovery pace. The run was going fine at the half-mile mark, but by the end of the first mile I believed that I was some twenty seconds or more behind my previous time! I was convinced that I had slowed down at a much faster rate than normal. Damn – I must be coming down with a cold! I thought. During the second mile I was debating the wisdom of running the full nine miles. Potentially it could weaken my immune system and make me more likely to come down with a much worse cold. At this point I decided to see how I felt at the end of four miles. If I still felt under-the-weather I would call it a day.

Over the next couple of miles my mind was wavering. Although I believed I was slower, I actually didn’t feel as bad as I had earlier in the run. At the fourth mile, I wasn’t quite sure, but I seemed to be maintaining a reasonable pace and perhaps was making up a bit of time? OK then, let’s see how I feel at six miles.

I was feeling more comfortable, if a little tired as I was approaching six miles. If I was slower than usual, it certainly wasn’t by much. It would be a shame to miss out on a reasonable length run, so I would carry on until seven miles and finish there, only two miles short of my planned distance. This would mean that I would not have to change my schedule for future runs.

My pace was maintained comfortably throughout the seventh mile. If anything, I was feeling better now than at any point earlier in the run. Great! Another mile would mean that I had barely changed my scheduled run. So I continued. In fact, I continued past the eight mile mark. I only had another mile to go to complete the scheduled distance, and it no longer mattered if it was slower than hoped. To run nine miles in the future I would have to start all over again, whereas now I was less than a mile away from the distance. It would be pointless to stop.

So in the end I completed my original target distance. What’s more, I subsequently discovered that I had in fact been running slightly faster than in previous recovery runs! In hindsight, I think I was confusing my progress with a faster Tempo run, and not a recovery run. All the negative feelings were in my head. I would have been kicking myself all week had I abandoned that run.

This was a reminder to me that some of my best runs have happened on days when I least felt like running. Also, I often find that the first mile or so can feel worse than the subsequent miles. Thus, it is not a good idea to make any decisions about abandoning a run until around the two mile mark. If the idea of a long run feels dreadful, then the promise that I’ll stop once I’ve reached a shorter goal can be enough to keep me going.  It’s a simple mind game, but it works.

The most important thing is to get started. It is easy to miss a training run if I don’t even bother getting changed into my running clothes. Once the run is under way, it then becomes harder to abandon it than to carry on.

You can find articles about training with a heart rate monitor at the Women’s Heart Rate Monitor training blog, where you can also follow my progress as I put the principles into action.

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In my first five weeks heart rate monitor training I have made some fairly good progress. My speed is increasing and I’m now running around 25 miles per week. All of my runs thus far have been on a flat treadmill, and now it is time to gradually increase the incline on the treadmill to better prepare for outdoor racing. So for the next few weeks I intend to run primarily on an incline of 0.5%. Just a baby step for the moment, then when I feel ready I will increase the incline still further.

I started the week with an interval training session which was basically identical to the previous week. The difference was that I started the main intervals at 7.5mph and maintained this for the first four intervals. My heart rate reached 173bpm on the fourth interval, so I performed the final interval at 7mph and reached 172bpm before jogging the final mile. Given that I was running on a slight incline, I was happy to see that I still finished the session very slightly faster than the previous week.

On the second and third day I ran recovery runs of six miles and four miles respectively. My times were around the same as the previous week. This still represented an improvement, because the previous runs had been on the flat.

Day four was my second hard session of the week. Rather than increase my target heart rate for the Tempo run, I increased the distance to four miles while maintaining 80%MHR (164bpm). Again, I was pleased to see that my speed was no slower than my previous run on a flat treadmill.

I have noticed a very slight ache in my legs this last couple of days. That’s good as it means that I will be better prepared for running outdoors. I’m happy with the way the training is going and I’m now feeling even more motivated for entering some warm-up races on my journey to the spring marathon.

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

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I started the week with an interval training session. During this session I ran a warm-up mile at 5mph, which gradually increased my heart rate to just below 65% of my maximum. Then I ran a series of “striders” for one mile. My first Strider was 6mph, then I increased each subsequent one by 1mph and ran the final one at 10mph. This brought my heart rate up to around 85% and prepared me for the main interval session.

I ran 0.25 mile intervals on the treadmill with 0.15 recovery jogs. As it was my first interval session it meant that I could only estimate a good starting pace. I decided to run at 8mph, but found that this was too fast for the first interval as my heart rate started to climb above my 85% target heart rate. This was not a problem, but would likely mean a considerable struggle at this stage in my training, so I reduced the next interval to 7.5mph. This still felt a bit too fast, so I decided to run the remaining three intervals at 7mph. My heart rate reached my 85% target in each interval, so this was fast enough. My recovery jogs were all at 5mph.

After two miles of intervals I continued for one more mile at an easy 5mph pace. Overall it felt like a tough, but enjoyable five mile workout. At the finish I walked for about 0.25 miles to cool-down, then did my usual back stretches and some leg stretches (hamstrings, quads and calves).

On Day 2, I ran a six-mile recovery run. It was very pleasing to see that my time for the distance had improved by close to two minutes! Such is the power of interval sessions.

Day 3 was a rest day, due to the fact that I had a full day of travelling and work, followed by my second hard training day of the week. I don’t usually run two interval training sessions in one week, so for this session I had planned a three mile steady run at 80% of my maximum. I started at 7mph and gradually reduced my speed (as dictated by my heart rate) to 6.3mph during the run. I ran a four mile recovery run on Day 5, followed by my final run of the week the following day, which was eight miles at recovery pace.

The culmination of the weeks training saw more than five and a half minutes improvement in my time at six miles, compared to the previous week, and well over six minutes reduction in my time for seven miles! This is the result of running faster in the early miles and maintaining a higher speed for longer in the later miles – a double whammy! All in all a good weeks work.

Here is a summary of the weeks training:

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

I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with interval training. I hate pushing myself through some really hard intervals, but I love the feeling when they are over and I especially love the resulting improvement in my general running!

The idea of Interval Training is to run at your race pace (or faster) for a specified distance, interspersed with recovery-pace jogs to reduce the stress on the body. This is widely considered to be the best way to improve race performances – superior to Tempo (steady, hard) runs. It can teach you to tolerate higher levels of discomfort, which will benefit you during a race.

The general principle is to run shorter intervals with more repetitions for shorter races, and longer intervals with fewer repetitions for longer races. However, you will benefit from a mixture of long and short interval sessions in your program. This is because the shorter intervals will help build speed and power, while longer intervals (necessarily run at a slower pace) will help improve endurance and stamina.

If you have access to a running track, a typical sprint interval may be from one to four laps of the track (400m to 1600m). I do not have this facility, but fortunately it is also a trivial matter to structure an interval session on a treadmill where distance is easily tracked. It can be pretty difficult to get reliable measured distances on outside routes, unless you have a heart rate monitor watch that includes GPS tracking or a foot pod to measure distance.

At the start of a running program I tend to run intervals at a pretty conservative pace, say 80-85% MHR. Then build-up to faster intervals as the program progresses over the weeks approaching a target race, at which point they would be at 90-95% MHR. I try to perform each interval at the same speed, but will reduce speed of the later intervals if necessary to maintain control. Sometimes, I may not increase the intensity, but instead increase the number of intervals in a given session. I’m usually flexible to inject variety, but try to adjust my program to fit a particular goal. I’ll try to cover more about this in a future article.

The interval recovery jog is just as important as the sprint interval. To develop your fitness, you do not want to fully recover from the sprint interval before starting the next one. However you need to recover enough that you can perform another fast, high quality interval. A rough guide is to take as much time to recover that it takes to run the sprint intervals. Another option is to use your heart rate monitor to determine when to start the next sprint. For example, start the next sprint interval as soon as your heart rate drops below 65% of your maximum heart rate. The latter method has the advantage of preventing you from being able to run too fast in the sprint intervals.

Due to the intensity of a good interval training session, I would generally run only one such session per week.  My other hard day would likely be a tempo run, rather than another interval session.

You can follow my progress and see examples of how I structure my interval training in the Running Diary section of my blog.

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This article describes how I have adapted “Strides” (also known as “Striders”) into my hard sessions.  I frequently refer to striders in my training diary, which you can follow on the Women’s Heart Rate Monitor blog.

The idea is to do 100 meter repeats at near sprint speed, interspersed with 100 meter jog recoveries. The 100 meter sprints should start easy and build-up to fast speed over the first 20 meters, then hold the fast speed for 60 meters before coasting back down to a jog over the final 20 meters. Since I do not run on a track, I have adapted this for my own workouts on a treadmill.

I start with a warm-up mile at say 5mph to increase my heart rate to about 65% of my maximum. I then input my “sprint” speed into the console. Since the treadmill then takes around 0.02 to 0.03 miles to reach the full speed, this allows me to build-up the speed and simulate that first 20 meters. I then maintain this speed for the remainder of 0.1 miles before inputting 5mph into the treadmill console. The machine then takes roughly 0.02 miles to reduce to the jogging speed. I maintain the jogging speed until another tenth of a mile is reached then start the process again.

Another change I make for my own adaptation is to start with a lower “sprint” speed and increase this with each successive “stride” until I reach the fastest speed for the session. Generally, I aim for the fastest speed to be faster than the planned speed of my subsequent intervals. I like to do this as it initially makes the intervals feel easier. I monitor my heart rate throughout and reduce the speed if I find that I have over-estimated my ability.

Let’s say I planning to run half-mile intervals at 8mph (my estimated speed for 85% Maximum Heart Rate), then I may conduct a session as follows. After my warm-up jog when I reach the 1.0 mile mark I immediately increase the treadmill speed to 6mph and maintain this until 1.1 miles. Now I run at 5mph until 1.2 miles, then run at 7mph until 1.3 miles, then 5mph until 1.4 miles. This process is repeated with stride intervals of 8mph, 9mph and finally 10mph at which point my heart rate has increased to just below 85% of my maximum. The final 5mph recovery takes me to the 2.0 mile mark, and I’m then ready to commence my main interval session.

As my fitness improves, I may start the strides at 7-8mph and increase to 11-12mph. The idea is to be at around my planned interval training heart rate by the time I commence the main interval training session. This could be anywhere between 80% and 95% of my Maximum Heart Rate, depending on where I am in my training cycle and fitness level.

The maximum speed of my treadmill is 12mph. If this is not fast enough to meet my heart-rate requirement, then I can simply increase the incline of the treadmill to make the workout harder.

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Today was the first time during my current routine that I experienced a second wind. I had slowed down to 4.4mph at the six mile mark, but then saw that my heart rate dropped several beats to below 150bpm. I gradually increased in 0.1mph increments until I settled at 4.8mph and a steady 152bpm. I finished the run at a comfortable 4.7mph. This is a phenomenon that I have experienced many times during longer runs. I don’t know the science behind it, I just know that it happens. Perhaps I’ll research an article for the Women’s Heart Rate Monitor blog.

So now my four week “induction” back into training is complete. I’m happy with the way things have gone and am now ready to step things up a gear by introducing more speed work. This will mix things up a bit and make it more interesting. Also, I’ve decided that I am definitely going to target a marathon in Spring 2010, so I will work towards running a half-marathon by the end of this year. Once I establish some dates I’ll draft up a training schedule for my long runs and speed training.

I’ve highlighted the tempo run in bold to distinguish it from the recovery runs.

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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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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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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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