Wunning Woes

An interesting thing happened today. I was out for a pretty long run (around Stanley Park...took about 2.5 hours) and just as I was on the last stretch home (after Macdonald) my RPE shot up and I had trouble keeping my HR below 150, even at a snail's pace.

Now, I had just eaten and Eat More chocolate bar, so I suppose it could have been due to digestion, or it could have just been fatigue. In any case, I should watch and see if/when it happens again.

As an aside, today was absolutely gorgeous. The sun was bright and it had that "triathlete" feel for me, the memories of early morning races in the summer sun.

Ahhh, what a wonderful life!

Weight

It's kinda fun evaluating these parameters...especially when you see progress in areas like VO2max (which appears to be reliable within something like 6% of actual tested maxes).

Anyways, current weight appears to be:

175lbs

It appears I've lost about 5 pounds over the last year, give or take. I'm not sure where I lost it from as I'm pretty slim as it is.

A lighter weight tends to equal a higher VO2max apparently, so I'll have to retest that in the next day or two and see how it differs, if at all.

VO2max and HRmax

I did two fitness tests with my Polar S210 last night and this morning. I'm not sure how accurate Polar's testing software is for calculating ones OwnIndex (VO2max), but to its credit it did give me the same readings both times (once late at night after work and once first thing in the morning).

OwnIndex/VO2max - 68
HRmax - 194

My VO2max has gone up 3 points since I last did the test in May when I first got the HRM. My HRmax has dropped one point.

I'm not sure just how accurate this test is, but I have a very high, and obviously increasing VO2max. To say that I'm excited for my prospects in this sport is an understatement.

Lactate Threshold Test

First the parameters:
2 hour easy bike on trainer yesterday
1.5 beers last night
~7 hours sleep, maybe less
Uncertain about resting HR, but it seemed on par when I put the monitor on.

Test consisted of running 10 minutes to track (too wet/snow covered to use) then going 20 mins all out and using that average as my LTHR. Apparently this is Joe Friel's method.

Results:
179 bpm HR average

(Distance was only 5k. 10k might be a better indicator, but I still felt like I had some gas left in me by the end so I'm not sure how much it would change.) I'll do another test in a month and see how it differs.)

2 hours on the trainer

...smashing my previous record of 1 hour. Yay! I watched the entirety of Spiderman 2 whilst pedalling away, with a few short breaks here and there.

I think that's my longest ride this year, indoors or out. Not too shabby...

Half Iron coming up...

June 17th (I think)

New Balance Half Ironman triathlon.

I told myself I wouldn't do a 1/2IM this year because it was too expensive, but it's hard to deny that a nice structured race is far superior to the idea of simply "doing your own 1/2IM on a Sunday." Aid stations are very nice, as is official timing. You can also compare yourself to the 549 other athletes out there in the field and see how you stack up (probably not too high, but I haven't been tested at a long course yet so who knows?).

In any case, I'm looking forward to it.

In related news, training is slowly starting to get back on track. I've been running and cycling with increasing frequency, which is nice, but swimming, um, never, which is not nice. Hopefully tomorrow I can drag my ass to the pool for 30 minutes and start getting back on that rather high horse.

(As an aside, it looks like I will soon be working for HSBC. Rob is confident that I will get in there, and soon. I don't doubt his good intentions, but I will wait until they actually offer me a position before I get too excited.)