Sunday, January 18, 2009

A Trip to LSD: HR Training - Day 28 & Week 4 result



Today was my first LSD Base run according to the training plan. It's one of the most complicated runs in the entire list, touching all three HR Zones. Here's the pattern:

5 min Zone 1
5 min Zone 2
5 min Zone 1
3 min Zone 3
10 min Zone 1
10 min Zone 2
5 min Zone 1
3 min Zone 3
15 min Zone 1
10 min Zone 2
20 min Zone 1
10 min Zone 2
15 min Zone 1

Total time is supposed to be 116 minutes (not including my 15 minute warm-up). But there are two problems I have with doing this:

1.) The pattern is insane! No way I can remember this! I knew that I'd mess it up somehow. (Which I did during the Zone 2 and Zone 3 runs).
2.) The 3 minute bursts in Zone 3 cannot be programmed into the Suunto's interval timers anywhere, so I'd have to mess with this too, setting my watch to go off every 5 minutes and with the Zone 3 runs, run hard for those 3 minutes and then slow down after for the remaining 2 minutes. This would make the run at 120 minutes instead.

So, with a complicated run like this, what do I do? I make it more complicated by going to a trail with rolling hills (aka Lake Youngs). Sure, like I don't have enough problems already.

However, this would be a good test to see how I would manage myself on the ups and downs while maintaining my HR in the appropriate zones.

As you can see, compared to my past runs, this was all over the place. There were some good points where I was able to keep my HR in zone 1 while going uphill and downhill in spots. However, if I'm going to be able to take on Cascade Crest, I'm going to need to train on hills MORE and get my body toughened up with some core work (hence, my CrossFit training using the Gant Hybrid after day 42.) And I ALMOST finished the whole loop in the 2 hours (2:04:27).

Other good things: Flying on the downhills! Change of venue! The sunshine!

Hopefully, I'll do better next week for the actual Pigtails Run where I'll do the same loop again - maybe faster or have a better controlled HR? We'll see.

And as always, the week in review. Compared to previous weeks, I did alot more harder runs according to the training effect.

2 comments:

Thomas Tan said...

Jon! Found your blog through Nic's. Wow, looks like you're in some serious rehab/recovery since WR50. I was wondering why I haven't seen you out on the trails lately. The important thing is that you're making progress and I'm sure you'll come back stronger.

Jon said...

Hey Thomas!

Yeah, after my stress-fracture and just having a piss-poor training plan, I finally got myself back on track with this. If you're coming to Van's Pigtails Run, I'll be there doing one loop for training (maybe two, but I doubt it).

If I play my cards right, White River and Cascade Crest finishes should be something attainable.