DST ending, headlamp running season beginning

Second run of the week in the pitch black tonight. Another 5 months of that in store.

The trails were so dry before today that even on and off rain for about 8 hours didn't make them muddy. As soon as it stopped raining they were runnable.

My sinuses finally seem to be back to normal. Should be back in the pool next week.

Roadracing and heartrate

Early last year I wore my Forerunner 305 and heartrate sensor out on track for a session around Buttonwillow Raceway. You'd think being on a bike with 160+ horsepower would mean it does the work while you just sit there, but folks what have actually done it will tell you different.

Here's my HR chart.



A friend is a serious triathlete and wore the monitor for a session and he was averaging about 30bpm less, but he can run 7:30 miles at 130bpm... so that isn't much of a surprise. He was trying hard, for him.

Another friend had us all worried when we tried it on him, because he was 190+ bpm. We were convinced he was holding his breath for about 2 miles of the 3 each lap. Remembering to breathe can be hard.

Here's the layout plotted by the GPS track.



All in all it is sort of a combo of cardio and weightlifting.

Offroad motorcycling as crosstraining

Here's day one of a 3 day ride. Average heartrate = 130. Max was about 165. At 10,000 feet, 165 bpm feels like 180 at my usual altitude. This graph covers about 4hrs 30 min. Just because a motorcycle has an engine and a seat, doesn't mean it can't be a workout to ride it.

The toughest part is long steep descents where you can wind up doing what feels like trying to bench press your max and then hold it for a minute.

Even better than ice. 80mph massage therapy

A buddy and I went to the mountains around Bishop and Mammoth CA this past weekend for some offroad motorcycle riding. After 3 days of that my runner's knee had almost vanished. You stand on the bike a lot, using your legs as a secondary suspension, and the effect is like doing a lot of lunges and squats. I'll post some more later about motorcycles riding as working out.

Conventional wisdom is actually right sometimes. Who knew?

Icing the knees post run seems to be helping. The commuter mug trick works well and keeps the ice frozen in the car while I run. The drive back from the trails is about 10-15 min and that is enough to make a difference. The patellar straps hold the ice bags in place. Convenient.

Flatted

Done in by a staple. Bah. Hadn't had a flat in a LONG time. Didn't think I needed to be in a rush to get a flat kit on the bike. Good thing I was riding with someone else. His flat kit: a spare tube, a patch kit (containing no patches, just the directions), and no means of inflation whatsoever. We got it sorted out eventually. There was even a bike shop on our route so within 20 minutes we were resupplied.

Here's the route. Nice ride on a day that threatened to be hot or cold a few times but never did. Please excuse the extra bit of activity tacked on to the end where the Forerunner got turned on for a few seconds.

Personal trainer

All credit where it is due. Here's a vid of my personal trainer pacing me on a trail run. If it weren't for him I wouldn't have run marathons, or be planning an olympic tri.

Runners knee cure. Take three.

Packed a baggie of ice in a commuter mug tonight and stashed it in the truck at the trailhead. Got back from the run and was able to try icing up my knee right away. Use the knee strap to hold the back on. Seemed to work. Should have an idea in a week or two if this will help or if I'll just have to stop running until this heals up. Taking 3 weeks off helped but now after two weeks of low-intensity runs symptoms are back. So 3 weeks wasn't enough to heal it for good.

1 workout = 2 apples?

While taking off a few days from workouts this week due to some sinus foo I was trying to remember the last time I'd been sick. Near as I can recall it was March 2006. 3 workouts a week seems to have done a lot to keep me healthy. Since the prescription is supposed to be "an apple a day", that must mean that a workout is as powerful a preventative as 2 apples, since it lasts for 2 days.

Flonase is the best.

Heel striking; threat or menace?

Almost didn't run tonight. The sinus symptoms that started earlier this week turned into more general head cold type symptoms overnight.

Decided to go for a 100% aerobic run and to try and have better form. This is always hard for me to change since it seems to affect the balance of all your body parts at once. Tonight I just ran sort of slow, worked on gently hopping from one eggshell to another and kept an eye on my heartrate. Other than that I just tried to move forward as fast as those constraints allowed. At first I couldn't even coordinate well enough to push hard enough to get my HR up to the max I would allow.

The course is an out and back. Mostly downhill out, and uphill back. The hills are steep enough that if I run this loop for best time I'll average 170bpm and be over 180 on the steep parts, and the back will be a minute slower than the out.

Tonight out was two minutes slower than back, which itself was pretty respectable for considering how light the effort was. Nowhere near PR, but the adjustment to the stride was starting to feel automatic.

Aerobic workout on Grand Theft Auto IV

If this works a heart rate trace will accompany this post.

Maybe zone one doesn't count as aerobic work. Still funny though. This is from the Snow Storm mission.