Be Still My Beating Heart

5 km and Counting
On Monday I surprised myself by reaching a significant milestone with a 5.05 km activity. 5.0 km is the distance in parkrun which is my first race goal and I hadn't expected to reach that distance that day but due to running faster than planned, I covered more ground. It did include warm up and cool down which were both 5 min's so really it was only about a 4 km activity, but hey, GPS had 5 km on it when I got home so I'm having it.
Today I clocked 4.95 km on the treadmill, excluding warm up/cool down in a session of 4 x 7 minute runs with 3 min walk intervals.

Until today, I have been treating warm up and cool down as part of my cumulative activity. To be honest, until a few weeks ago I'd have only been out 10 min's if I didn't. Anyway, now I'm in the area of 5 km, I will exclude those so that my records show actual activity distance and duration only.

Heart Rate
For reasons associated with fascination with data, Decathlon's website, discounted kit and impulse spending I have ended up with a cheap Heart Rate Monitor (HRM) watch.  This is proving entertaining but also slightly concerning.
My resting heart rate is about 54bpm which for age 59 is pretty darned good. However, when it comes to training the figures appear rather high. In a steady and not that taxing 4 x 7 min treadmill session I was recording a high of 175bpm on the runs reducing to 135bpm by the end of each 3 min walk interval. Now, the drop of 40 is great but everything I've read infers that I should be aiming at highs of about 132bpm where I'm currently over 170bpm.
I shall experiment over the next couple of weeks and update you.

I am hoping to use the HRM to solve my puzzle of the different effort between road and treadmill. I feel I'm putting about the same effort into 11.5 kph on road and 9 kpm on the treadmill with a 2.3 gradient set.  In theory, I can correlate these by using my heart rate to identify the same effort. I'm actually quite excited about this which I realise is pathetic.


  
Running for St. Ann's Hospice in memory of Margaret Donovan (Mum) and Sheila Waddington.

Heading For The Goal

Progressing
Progress has been excellent since my last post. My Treadmill sessions continue to extend and 2 more road runs have given me a lot more confidence. As yet, my errant achilles are remaining intact.

The following distances and times include 5 min warm up and 5 minute cool down walks.

• 23rd Jan 2013: 4.5 km of which 2.9 km was running. 31 mn overall / 15 mn running
• 17th Jan 2013: 4.0 km of which 2.2 km was running. 29 mn overall / 12 mn running

I am gradually improving the ratio of run to walk with my latest road run being 3 x 5 min running with interval walks down to 3 min. I think I'm going to stick at 3 min recovery walks for a while now while extending the run interval duration.

Goals Set
As I mentioned in early posts, I am using the excellent Runkeeper App to track my progress. Yesterday I finally entered a couple of goals, the Great Manchester Run 10k is on 26th May and my ultimate goal and I have given myself a goal of completing my first 5k parkrun by 24th February.


  
Running for St. Ann's Hospice in memory of Margaret Donovan (Mum) and Sheila Waddington.

Cramping My Style

Cramp!
CRAMP for God's sake! I thought I'd torn something in my calf but the Osteopath tells me I just had a severe localised cramp, probably partly due to dehydration after sitting around in too hot rooms drinking too much booze for 2 weeks over the Christmas holiday. It still took a week to stop hurting, cramp or no cramp.
Properly hydrating now and swigging tonic water for good measure as the Quinine really helps with cramp.

Off Down The Road
Back to training again now and Saturday saw my 3rd road run, well walk/run anyway. 3 x 3 min runs with 4min walk intervals and 5 min warm up and cool down - I'm still scared of the achilles so am forcing myself to be careful.
This road run was a major milestone as the distance and time equalled my disastrous first outing back in April when I injured myself. 

• 12th Jan 2013: 3.7 km of which 1.7 km was running   27m overall 9m running
• 22nd Apr 2012: 3.6 km of which 1.7 km was running   25m overall 8m running

Training Halted Again

Training halted again, calf pain this time. On the 18th length of the pool last Friday I suddenly had pain in a knot inside my left calf muscle. I haven't risked any runs since but I did go for a 7 mile hill walk on Sunday which caused it to hurt sometimes. In M&S last night, I was having no trouble then just out of the blue it hurt again when I moved after I'd been hanging about waiting for Lynne.
It doesn't hurt most of the time but poking around in the calf locates a painful firm area. I think it's improving but I've been up a ladder pruning trees this morning which pulled a bit occasionally and was hardly resting it.

Getting worried as the weeks keep disappearing and I'm not even at 5 km yet. Most recent progress was to 3 x 4min runs split with 3 min walk on treadmill.   (1.7 km actual run in 2.57 km overall)
On the positive side, achilles feel fine after all this time.

Received my first sponsorship this week which is great. Feel free to join in below.