this past weekend my parents came to visit and totally tried to keep me on track with this whole "training" thing. i took a day off from work and went for my first outdoor run since i started. i figured out a 2 mile block around my neighborhood, started off and before i knew it, was a little tired and way further along than i had expected. while waiting for the stop light to change i looked at my handy dandy runkeeper app. i had finished 1.5 miles at a pace of a 10 minute mile, no wonder i was exhausted.
i've been varying my pace on the treadmill a bit, starting at 4.7 for a song, 4.9 for a song and 5.2 for the rest. i'm averaging a 12.5 minute mile. so what happened? clearly i have no idea what a 12.5 minute mile feels like. i've been working on a machine that does the ground moving for me so i just get in rhythm with it. now i have to figure out how to pace myself before i keel over on the side of vineland from exhaustion. as my ironman athlete lady friend told me as we watched unc tear down dook, when you're running a long distance, it's all about pacing. (yes, i had to give a unc shout out)
how will i learn to pace myself when the treadmill is not around? there are a few options; one is cheap the other is not. i have the handy dandy run keeper app on my phone: it tracks gps, keeps time and pace of each mile and easily saves to my online runkeeper account. the draw back? i don't run with my phone readily available when outdoors, i keep it in my little run bag with my house keys. i don't use my iphone as an ipod when i run outdoors, i have a shuffle for that and don't feel like moving to a bulkier arm band. i'm left with the following option, some heart rate monitor / pacer combo.
man there's a lot of choices. i took my parents down to santa monica for the day and we stopped into rei to look around. i had planned on looking at a polar ft60, it's got great reviews and comes in pink. this is simply a heart rate monitor with gps capabilities meaning, it will not track pace unless you shell out extra $ for the separate gps monitor. i'm told the company also had a foot pod but it worked so poorly they pulled the product. basically, too much money and too many extra parts.
then i heard about the garmin 305 from ironman lady, she swore it would change the way i train. it was only $200 and had everything i'd ever need, yes!!! oh wait, what's that word next to the model - discontinued. ugh! so i was torn, what to do. luckily garmin has a great site where you can compare all their heart rate/gps devices. i've settled on a forerunner 405cx over the 110 womens because the 405cx has a feature where you set your pace and it lets you know when you go under or over. plus, it was way on sale at amazon, score!
looking forward to having my wrist yell at me for messing up. til next time ...
oh, i almost forgot, i ran 2.2 miles without stopping and/or realizing it. that was pretty awesome. here's the 2 mile play list (i swear i'll change it up more next time):
make some noise - beastie boys
moves like jagger - maroon five
move along - all american rejects
piece of me - britney spears
boom boom pow - black eyes peas (this may never leave rotation)
run the world - beyonce
tik tok - key-dollar sign-ha
party in the usa - miley cyrus
no hurry - zac brown band (cool down)
No comments:
Post a Comment