This is the second of the the runs for the first week. It is identical to the previous run (walk 5, then 20 minutes of run 1, walk 1.5, followed by walking 5). The difference is that I reversed my route because when these runs lengthen I don’t want to run down Soapstone with traffic, I want to be going against traffic. The downside to this is Glade is much more hilly than South Lakes and I could both feel the difference running it and see the difference in my pace. My overall pace was slower and the runs that occurred on uphill grades were noticeably slower.

Still, this felt like a good workout. My average heart rate was in the 140′s and I peaked in the 160′s. I’d think if I do this three times a week for half an hour I should start to see some improvement.

With Lauri down in Staunton helping Jaimi prepare for her wedding I decided to do an after work walk. The intent was to keep my heart rate in “zone 2″. For me, zone 2 or the “fat burning zone” is 132-142bpm. The body is supposed to get 85% of it’s energy from stored fat in this zone. Based on my results when running I didn’t expect any trouble getting my heart rate to jump up but this turned out to be overly optimistic (or pessimistic depending on how you look at it).

I set off at as brisk a pace as I could naturally walk. That turned out to be an average pace of 16:30/mile. If I tried to go faster my body wanted to shift to jogging and I wanted a day of rest from running to ensure I didn’t try to get too crazy with a flabby body too quickly. To my surprise I had a hard time reaching zone 2 while walking. I managed it on hills but on flat ground my heart rate stayed stubbornly in zone 1.

My initial interpretation of this combined with yesterday’s run results is that my heart is healthy but out of shape. Walking on level ground even at a brisk pace doesn’t put enough stress on it to raise my heart rate too much. Jogging, though, immediately sends my heart rate up into zone 4. Zone 3 seems firmly unobtainable except for quick transits on the way up or down unless I can find the right combination of walking and running. I suspect this will change over time as my fitness improves though how long it will be before I see improvement in the numbers isn’t known.

If the pretty picture below is not so pretty but instead blank, you can see all the details here.

I’ve decided to make an attempt to improve my fitness level and so I’ve decided to build myself up to running a 5K. Not that I’m intending to run a formal race (though I might decide to in the future). I just want to set a goal for myself and that seemed like an attainable one in a reasonable amount of time.

I haven’t run since I was in high school and although I was getting a decent amount of walking exercise, in the last few years that hasn’t been the case. I figured I needed to make a concerted effort to correct that trend while my body was still in a position to recover from the neglect.

I found a Couch to 5K training program and it looked like a good way to proceed. The idea is three runs a week lasting 20-30 minutes. Over 9 weeks you build toward running 5km. The first week is relatively easy. You start with a 5 minute warmup walk. Then you have 8 repeats of running for 60 seconds followed by walking for 90 seconds. Even I could do that.

The Garmin Connect site has my training results and you can look at them if you want to see just how slow I am. The overall combined walking/running pace was just over 4 miles/hour. When I was running I was averaging just under 12 minute miles and I managed to keep my pace fairly consistent throughout the run portions. My heart is working much harder than it ought to need to to propel me at at a run though it starts to recover quickly. However, you can see the cumulative effect of the runs push my heart rate up higher on the last few run sections. Those were the sections where I began to feel fatigue in my legs also.

Unfortunately, I misread the watch at the beginning of run section 8 and thought I was done so I walked through that 60 seconds. I didn’t realize it until I saw the next walk section start. I decided to run through the end of the walk section so my graphs are a little whacked at the end because of that. I also decided to add a 5 minute cool down walk at the end so I can get a better sense for heart rate recovery. Future graphs should have that.

Overall, it wasn’t too bad. I worked up a good “glow” and my legs didn’t hurt at all. The running shoes I got are very comfortable and my feet are loving them.

I’ve always hated running but right now I’m motivated to do this and being able to see heart rate and pace data really help my understand what’s happening physically. That should make it a lot easier to see improvements over time which should help maintain that motivation.

If the pretty picture below is not so pretty but instead blank, you can see all the details here.