Measuring Heart Rate

This post will be a little bit of a modge podge of topics. I'll highlight a few things and then go in to more detail about the beginnings of my heart rate monitoring and training!

Runs
-4 times last week (Sun/Mon/Wed/Fri) and another run today (Sunday)
-(both) Sundays: 2.5 mile runs with Ellie to Harvard Gulch (152 and 151 avg heart rate)
-Monday: 2 mile treadmill run at 10 min pace (HR unknown)
-Wednesday: 3.2 mile outside run at work - 2nd fastest time for 13 times running this course (161 avg heart rate)
-Friday: 4 mile intervals on treadmill, average heart rate 168

Take aways
1- Ellie does NOT like to run. I feel like people are judging me as it appears I am dragging her. She is content trotting along, but has the energy to speed up once she sees squirrels, dogs, etc. I know she is MUCH faster - she sprints up and down in the snow hiking and does crack laps around the yard! She doesn't like running much. She DOES like lounging around and looking cute:

Case in point - Ellie lounging: (AA took this in Beaver Creek this weekend)

2- I am slow. I don't care that I am slow - but when I was training for the Boulder 1/2 I was not concerned as much with my time, as I was building my endurance. The next race I have is the Turkey Trot in Wash Park on Thanksgiving. I wanted to see what I ran last year to see what I had to beat. I was amazed I ran a 9:32 pace last year for the four mile race! Most of my miles have been around 10:30ish recently, so I made my goal over the next 4 weeks to improve my speed. Just for perspective, my first race in Denver was the 2010 Turkey Trot and I had an 11:09 pace! I don't think I'll have as big of an improvement this year, but I am looking get the 9:30ish pace!  

2011 Turkey Trot - Tyler, AA, Panda

3- I want to learn more about my heart rate...my target heart rate, my max rate, my rate for recovery runs, etc. This past week I have started collecting data by wearing the heart rate monitor for my watch. I'll go in to this a little bit more below. I think my goal of increasing my speed goes hand in hand with this idea as I learn to better monitor my heart rate and learn from it!

4- I love Colorado, and I love the outdoors :-) AA and I took a trip up to Beaver Creek for the weekend with the pups since he can get us amazing deals for hotels with his job :-) It was an amazing weekend of adventure, relaxing, and catching up with each other!

compliments of AA

AA at Beaver Creek Lake

Hoping the ice didn't break!

Puppies always close

Beautiful views of Beaver Creek!

5- Halloween is a great holiday. I dressed up in my panda costume to get a $2 boo-ritto. The line was pretty long! After I was a little disheartened when only four trick or treaters showed up at our house :-(
Also - day four with no candy! A blog I follow start a No Candy November Challenge. After having WAY too much candy leading up to Halloween I knew this is exactly what I needed to curb my intake! Especially since candy is a tasty treat while studying....but no unhealthy!

Heart Rate Training
I have only begun to look in to this. I decided to start collecting data would be my first step! Love to analyze data :-)
There are different zones you can target depending on what the aim of your workout is. There is a zone (60-70% of max rate) that is for long, recovery runs. The aerobic (70-80%) is the 'target heart rate zone' which is most effective to improve cardiovascular fitness. The anaerobic zone (80-90%) is used to increase your bodies lactate threshold and then the VO2 max which is only used for very fit people, and for a very little amount of time.

My first step is that I need to figure out my resting heart rate and my max heart rate so I can determine what these zones are. There is the basic calculation of 220-age = max heart rate. I also read something about doing a treadmill test where you run your hardest for 3 minutes (two times) with a small break and the max of your heart rate during the 2nd interval should be the max. I will try this.

So for now, I am doing research and trying to see what different types of training there are, and how to best improve my fitness. My interval training on Friday felt great. I monitored my heart rate and tried to let it drop a little bit before I would start the next fast interval. If anyone tracks their HR and has any advice please pass it on!!

Heart rate from intervals on Friday

 Have a great week! GO BRONCOS....great win today :-)

Pic from last week's game! Broncos beat the Saints week 8