Two new challenges

We're almost a quarter through 2010 - how has your running been going? I hope that you've managed to stay injury free and get out on the roads and trails as much as you wanted.

I'm doing not-too-badly on my running new years resolution. By today, I should have run 120 miles of my 500 annual total. I've managed 98 miles. So a little behind, but still a lot better than I did last year. In fact, last year it was the end of August by the time I got to 98 miles... I'm hoping that as the summer comes I'll be able to put in a few more miles per week to catch up with my target.

The cycling target has had to take a bit of a back seat for now, with me having cycled only 88 miles out of a 1000 mile annual target. I should be up to around 240 miles by now. Cycling, however, is much more possible in the summer so hopefully this will pick up too...

So - what are my two new challenges to follow on from my successful half marathon?

Firstly, I have entered myself in the Timex Eton SuperSprint Triathlon on May 15th.

It's a 400m open water swim, 20km bike and a 5k run. I'm not too worried about the bike and run, but I think I will be one of the slowest on the swim... I'm going to stick my neck out with a race time prediction - 12 mins for swim, 40 mins for bike and 30 mins for run. Add in a few minutes for transitions gives me a total time of 1 hour 25 mins. That compares to a fastest time last year of 56 mins. My predicted time would have placed me 550th out of 868 finishers which sounds like an achievable target.

Secondly, I want to (still) be quite a bit lighter by the time I do the triathlon (now in a little less than 7 weeks' time).

For those who have read this blog for a while, you'll know that I was successful in losing quite a bit of weight last year, going down from 102kg to 90kg at my very lightest. In reality, I think that my more 'natural' weight at the time as aroun 92kg (food in the system, fully hydrated etc.). Over Christmas, I went up to around 95kg and now I'm at 94kg. My target is to get down well below 90kg by the time I do the triathlon - so around 1kg per week to get me down to around 87kg. That will be the lightest I have been (and hopefully the fittest I have been) since I was at university almost 20 years ago...

So from tomorrow I'm going to reinstate my box in the right hand column which tracks my daily weight - check in regularly (or subscribe through a reader) to keep up to date with how I get on!

I still owe you a post about my home made energy drinks and gels which I'll give you next time. I'll also show you how I got a cadence meter for my bike for less than £2 - a lot cheaper than Garmin wanted!

The Fat Runner is dead...

...but still running...

Well that's what his Garmin Forerunner 305 is saying.

Before he bought the Forerunner, he researched a bunch of running forums, including the Runner's World forum to see what other runners were saying about the Forerunner 305.

Most runners seemed to be complementary about its features - fast GPS lock-on to satellites, able to track satellites while running in the woods, virtual trainer feature etc. Many of the negatives seemed to be around two things. Firstly, one of the metal contacts seems to go black, stopping the forerunner connecting to a PC and also stopping it from charging. Secondly, some people felt that the Forerunner battery didn't get close to matching the 10 hours battery life promised in the specification.

TFR decided to take a risk on the first concern, and realised that the second concern would be unlikely to be a concern for him - 10 hours of exercise in one go? He's not The Fat Ironman!!

But TFR has a third issue with the forerunner 305 - and that is the life of the battery in the heart rate monitor chest strap. Garmin promises that it will last 3 years, used 1 hour per day - in other words around 1200 hours. TFR, however, has had to replace the battery three times in two years - and this is running on average (perhaps) a few hours per week. So he's getting at most 100 hours out of a battery.

Hence the title of this post. According the his Forerunner, TFR now has no heart rate...

Does anyone else find the same? Perhaps the strap "switches itself on" even when it's not being worn? I'll contact Garmin to see if they have any idea...

Can his heart rate really be so high?

TFR ran again last Saturday for the ever-excellent Wimbledon Common time trial.

He also took a friend along with him - a friend who is much fitter than TFR and runs marathons in 3hrs 15, so he wanted to put on a good show, and hopefully beat his previous record of 29mins 40 seconds.

He had been running relatively hard throughout most of the race - running between 170 and 180 beats per minute, which is rather high against most of the normal criteria using the calculated maximum heart rate for a 34 year old of 186 beats per minute (the normal calculation is 220 minus age).

For the last 200-300 metres, however, TFR sprinted as hard as he could. When he got to look at his Garmin Forerunner after the race, he was surprised to see that his heart rate had reached 196bpm - way above his theoretical maximum.

This is going to have implications on how he trains - more on this in the next post!

Running gadgets

Running gadgets have substantially helped my motivation to run. Perhaps it's because I'm male and I like gadgets, but I certainly seem to run more with them.

So what is my number 1 gadget? Very easy question - it's the Garmin Forerunner 305.

You will be able to read many other reviews of the Forerunner, so I'm just going to provide a brief description and tell you how I use it.

So what is the Forerunner?

The Forerunner is a GPS HRM watch. It is a watch with a GPS receiver built into it, as well as having the ability to track your heart rate through a chest strap. You can therefore use this watch to understand your current speed, speed since you set off, your lap speed (more on that later) etc. as well as making sure you are keeping your heart rate where you want it!

So how do I use the Forerunner?

These are the things I set up most on my Forerunner:

For training runs, I try to keep a relatively low heart rate - around 150bpm - which means I run far more slowly than I can run, but I also can run longer. The Forerunner allows me to set an alarm for when I go over a particular heart rate and reminds me to slow down.

For runs where I'm pushing myself to see how fast I can run a course, then I'll set the heart rate limit much higher - at around 170bpm. It's there just to make sure I don't run so fast that I'll need to walk part of the course. The other thing I'll do is to set the Forerunner's 'virtual partner'. This allows me to run against myself, the last time I did the course! There are two main screens I can use to see if I am running faster or slower than my previous time - but it's a great motivator to run against the best you've ever run!

Lastly, for both types of run, I set the 'auto-lap' feature. Again, the Forerunner gives you lots of different options for how it calculates laps. I set it to auto-lap every half mile, which means every half mile, the watch beeps and I can look down at it to see how long my last half-mile took.

Anyway, those are the ways I like to use my Forerunner - let me know your favourite functions too!