be still my beating heart

[waider]

Got some new running goodies this weekend: a heart-rate monitor, a new pair of running shorts, and some decent running socks - still trying to find that perfect pair that'll save me from the blisters at mile 3. The HRM wasn't quite what I wanted; I'd been looking at the entry-level Polar kit, but none of the places I tried had it - Elverys, who advertise it on their website, had no HRMs in stock, Champion Sports (or was it Lifestyle?) had nothing either, and the only other likely spot, Argos, didn't have any of the Polar kit in stock, so I opted instead for their bottom-of-the-range offering given that worst case, I'd be out €22. Back home, I read the piece of paper with the HRM to find out how to use it, then went out for a run.

The plan: 5 miles, 40 minutes; I'm doing a 5-mile next weekend, and I didn't want to do the sort of hard burn I did last weekend. Aside from that, Sunday's supposed to be my day off exercising in general, just that my schedule got shunted slightly this week.

The reality: I can't, apparently, run a kilometre in five minutes, unless I've got someone else pacing me. It just seems too slow to me. I would up doing 4:15's or thereabouts, ultimately finishing the 5 miles in 35 minutes.

The socks: no blisters! there was a very mild chafing towards the end of the last kilometre, but I sailed past the three-mile mark without a twinge. Hurrah!

The HRM: functional. It can be used as a stopwatch - which I needed - as long as you bear in mind that there's a few-second lag between pressing the BIG RED BUTTON and the stopwatch actually starting. My resting heart rate is about 41 - which I knew, and which apparently means I'm either quite fit or verging on death - but I was quite surprised at how quickly it went up; within a couple of hundred metres of my front door, my heart rate had tripled to over 120bpm, and ultimately sat somewhere around 170 for the bulk of the running, peaking at just over 180. Hurrah for numbers! Ultimately, it's not a great HRM (the entry-level Polar has a real stopwatch, for example; the Polars have the added benefit that they'd talk to the stuff I use in the gym) but it'll do me for now.

Comments

[eejitalmuppet.livejournal.com]

A resting pulse of 41 is pretty impressive. I was somewhere in the mid 40s back in the 1990s, when I did a lot more exercise than I do now (these days I'm usually around 55-60). IIRC, there are algorithms for determining your optimal heart rate during aerobic exercise, mostly based on your age (something along the lines of: heart rate should be 70-85% of the "safe maximum" for your age); google may have more to say on the subject.

Out of curiosity, would something like vaseline be worth a try to inhibit that chafing (or would it just soften the skin and make it more susceptible to blisters)? I know it gets used on other bits by endurance athletes for that reason...

[waider.livejournal.com]

The scale of heart rates is on one of the machines I work out on at the gym, so now that I have a means of counting I'll have a look the next time I'm there. As for the chafing thing, I suspect it's got as much to do with running technique and footwear as anything else. The upcoming 5-miler has Adidas' footscan doohickey set up for use before and after the race, which determines how your foot hits the ground (e.g. if you get shin splints, you're doing it wrong) and what sort of shoe you need to compensate. Obviously there's a fine range of Adidas footwear to fit the bill, but that aside it'd be interesting just knowing. I may well try the vaseline option if the new socks don't do the job in actual race conditions.

[eejitalmuppet.livejournal.com]

I used to get shin splints (possibly a mixture of poor technique and the knackered trainers I wore at the time), which is why i decided that running was Not For Me. It would be interesting to know what a footscan doohickey had to say about such things.

Re: the vaseline, that was just a daft idea pulled out of the air; might be worth consulting someone who actually knows about running before you risk the suggestion of a specky wee muppet. ;)

Good luck for the 5-miler.

[waider.livejournal.com]

Well, Wikipedia, that wholly reliable source of all knowledge, told me that shin splints are caused by (a) OMG YOU ARE DIEING or (b) improper placement of the foot on the ground while running; in essence, your foot slaps down too quickly, which actually triggers a reflex response in your shin muscle (at least, that's my recollection, and I'm far too lazy to go look at the article again). This makes sense to me, in as much as I'm aware of the slapping when I'm tired and still trying to run hard. Placing your foot correctly is supposed to be a sort of progressive "landing" from heel to toe with a slight lateral roll at the same time. The footscan doohickey analyses how you put your foot down relative to how you should be doing it, and suggests corrective shoes to compensate for at least the lateral roll being over- or under- done. I'm not sure how you'd go about fixing the the heel-to-toe motion; it seems more like something that you simply have to train yourself out of.

Coupled to this the article I read recently which indicated that more padding on your shoes is actually bad for you because your brain wants to know what the terrain is like and has to make your foot land harder to get the requisite feedback. An interesting point-of-view, although like everything I read these days I took it with a large spoonful of skeptical salt.

And thank you for the good luck wishes.

[waider.livejournal.com]

Oh, I should add - it seems like the footscan is free in any running-supporting sports shop (i.e. not the local sneaker stockist). Nike have a similar one, and I've also seen adverts for an independant one.

[eejitalmuppet.livejournal.com]

in essence, your foot slaps down too quickly

Are you calling me a slapper? ;)

That does make sense. For some reason, I tended to get shin splints if i was running for the sake of running, but tended not to get them when I was participating in other sports which involve running. Maybe i do things wrong when i think too much about it...

[waidesworld.livejournal.com]

re the blisters:

Back when you big fat brother ran I never got blisters. I averaged four km runs on a every other day basis. The runners I used were ASICS and the socks were generic Target whites, which I am still using on the golf course.

Blisters are a combination of the shoe and the gait. The shoe you can change....or chop one of your toes off (don't try this at home) to change the gait.