Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Big G and Me - Our First Date

Anticipation was getting the best of me at dinner, so I hurried through to get home and introduce myself to Big G.

It went something like this:

Uhm - wow he looks a little complicated, but I'll figure him out.
(YES, there is ICE in my wine. Hey, it was an inexpensive Chardonnay and it wasn't chilled. I am a very impatient woman. Ice solved the problem. Get over it.)
So I fooled around with him. Pushed a few buttons. And voila.... it actually might work out for us. Of course, I didn't get toooooo advanced with him. Dah, it's only our first date.
So I charged him up over night. Woke up early, excited to see what he's really made of.
We got along quite nicely. He is kinda bulky, but I got used to it. The heart rate monitor stayed just fine. I didn't stare at it the entire run. But then again, it was dark out. And I didn't find that "Illumination" button until I got home. ha ha.
After all was said and done, he left me with a few stats to ponder.
So, here they are. Get ready to laugh and point:
Total Calories: 336
Mile 1: 10:49
Mile 2: 10:33
Mile 3: 9:55
Average Heart Rate: 163
This leaves me with a few questions:
1. When did I get so slow? I swear I used to run like a 9:30 mile.
2. What heart rate should I be shooting for?
Overall, I'm pretty happy with Big G. This seems to be the beginning of a beautiful new relationship.
Song of the Day: Foundations by Kate Nash

28 comments:

P.O.M. said...

How come blogger lets you have spaces between lines sometimes and not others? Weird.

Lori said...

I have that problem too sometimes when I put pictures in. I don't know why it feels the need to be difficult :P

Your miles are pretty nice compared to mine! LOL I have no idea about the heartrate thing and will be watching your comments to see what others have to say.

Ian said...

I got home from my first run with my Garmin and told my wife that I loved it but that it would be much cooler if it had a backlight.

Then she pointed out the backlight to me. I'm an idiot.

And don't even get me started on blogger's formatting problems.

P.O.M. said...

I googled "Target Heart Rate" and found this:
http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4736

According to American Heart, my heart was a little higher than it should be, I guess. But then again, it was dark and scary - maybe that's why.

Razz said...

Holy crap! Big G comes with a lot of stuff. Would that be considered baggage? I'm still jealous of course.

Viv said...

I did not know it had a light.
Gotta go to the manual again.
I have the manual on my bedisde and read a couple pages eveynight. Guess, I have not gotten to the light button. My HR is scary like heart attack scary, but I feel fine, go figure.

Great splits!

Marcy said...

OK where is the backlight? Seriously I still don't know :-X Glad you love him!!

Frayed Laces said...

As I've said elsewhere, once you get a Garmin prepared for a major running change. I became obsessed with the numbers (not like that's a bad thing or anything....)

Anyways, to answer your HR question. It depends on what type of run you are doing. Easy, Tempo, Intervals, Long Run...you should have different HR goals for each. Here's some suggestions from RW:

Easy run and long run 65-75% MHR

Tempo run 87-92% MHR

Interval repeats 95-100% MHR

Your HR for each type of run depends on your max HR. You could try to find your max HR (MHR) yourself with some tests that seem masochistic to me, or you could use the formula:

If you're under 40, use MHR= 208-(.7 x your age).

If you're over 40, use MHR= 205- (.5 x your age).

Another good thing to do is periodically check your resting heart rate (RHR) first thing in the AM, preferably before you leave bed. Don't quote me on this, but I believe that if it is 10-15% higher than normal, it means you're overtraining.

What's good about being able to see your HR is that you can see if you need to be training harder. For instance, if you have always done tempo runs at a certain pace, and see that your HR gets lower over time for that workout, you know you can step the pace up a bit. Garmin's software allows you not only to calculate your MHR, but you can also graph how your HR changes throughout the course of your run.

Phew, sorry if this is too much info. It's the science girl in me speaking. You can always go to runnersworld.com and search for articles on HR. They are an excellent resource.

P.O.M. said...

The backlight is the power button, but you just press it really quick, so you don't turn it off.

P.O.M. said...

Wow Frayed. Thank you for all the info. I'm sure I will be obsessed with numbers, that's jsut how I am :)

Reluctant Runner said...

Re: Blogger question. Take this with a grain of salt because I really have no idea but that has never stopped me from putting in my 2c before...

I was just in a training course today for how to post stuff to our intranet. I was told that if I cut-and-paste from Word, I should not format in Word but format after I've pasted into the site. Apparently, in the transition from a Word program, HTML sometimes gets messed up. I thought maybe that might be the source of some of my problems with Typepad and have resolved to try it out next time I post something.

Also, in Typepad, sometimes the line breaks disappear (very annoying), so I go into the html and place the little space tag in where I want a line break.

For what it's worth.

J~Mom said...

Glad you had a good run with G! I still struggle with finding the right heart rate.

ShirleyPerly said...

Congrats on your new toy! Email me offline about Kona so I can reply back to you (don't have your address). I'll be back there end of Feb (2/25). Perhaps we can meet up!

jen said...

Hi! Thanks for stopping by my blog :)

Cool that you got the 305. I just got my husband one for Christmas. He has yet to use the HR Monitor tho. I got him a book about it too so hopefully that helps. I bet you could find a book, but also I noticed the new Runner's World has a Heart Rate training article.

Love the blog, will be back. :)

Lori said...

That is some awesome info on HR!

RunnerGirl said...

glad things are working out with Big G!

Brooke said...

I didn't know there was a back light....I'm off to check that out.

Anne said...

Running with new technology can bring on quite the reality check. Don't think of it as being slow, think of it as being a great place to build on.

teacherwoman said...

Sounds like you had fun with Big G! Nice run!

Erin said...

I am so jealous. I want one! Ice in your wine is not too bad - I know someone who puts ice in their beer. So nasty.

Laurel said...

Is it bad that I would rather have your glass of wine than your Garmin right now?

Stuart said...

Check out Total Heart Rate Training by Joe Friel.

Type you blogger post in a text doc not a word doc it is html free, then you can post photos in etc

Oh and treat yourself to some decent wine!

;-)

Unknown said...

PT friend coming to answer your HR questions, but it seems all your crazy runner friends (obviously i'm not on the bandwagon yet) have answered them already! i would definitely have to say that running a slower pace at this point, after not running much in the past few months, is healthier for your cardiovascular system. Give yourself two weeks of running 3-4 days and you'll be back up to your usual pace. you shouldn't be more than 80-85% of your MHR while you're getting back in condition! you should also do a spot check of your heart rate manually to see how accurate the G is.

Jess said...

I have the 205, so it doesn't have as much equipment and numbers to figure out. The Garmin is bulky though -- seems like technology should be advanced enough to make that thing smaller, right?

Amy said...

Love your new toy! It would intimidate the crap out of me! Plus, I hardly ever run, so it would probably just laugh at me if I tried... ;)

Heather said...

Go with the Rate of Perceived Exertion in re: heart rate. My heart rate goes THROUGH THE FREAKING ROOF when I do cardio (like 188, which technically, on paper means my heart should explode) but various factors influence heart rate (like allergy medicine, for ejemplo). I make sure that my heart rate, when it is in CRAZY-land, doesn't stay that high very long. I'd say experiment with where your HR is equal to your RPE. Then adjust accordingly.

Laura N said...

Glad you got along with Big G just fine. Hey, at least you kicked it up on mile 3. I'm sure you'll find your Fast Girl with Big G's help. Have a super weekend!

Grumpy Chair said...

My hubby puts a bunch of ice cubes in red wine and it drives me insane.

To cool the wine - put wine in a beverage shaker then pour (like a martini) or just stir in a couple of ice cubes real quick, then immediately take ice cubes out.