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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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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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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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