Running and hr monitor

[Fiddleman 4,376]

I am liking the feedback from my polar hr monitor. For example, today I did my usual Tuesday sprint workout:

10 min @ 6.2 mph (warm up)

10 min @ 11.5 mph 3% grade (30 s sprints)

10 min @ 6.5 mph (cool down)

By the 3rd minute (3rd sprint), my top hr was 157 and my recovery hr was 148 (delta is widening after just a few sprint workouts - yeah!). I thought to myself, "anything below 160 is dogging it" so I bumped the speed up .3 mph and the incline up .5. The next sprint saw max hr @ 163. I played this little game of tweaking the treadmill settings or just pushing myself a little bit more until I got the top hr up to 168. It is a useful training tool. Let me tell you, that 10 minute cool down felt so slow after the sprints. All in all, I love my little hr watch for how it can help me not dog it even when I feel like j am putting in my best effort.

Edited June 11, 2014 by Fiddleman

[Fiddleman 4,376]

@@Fiddleman

Here was what mine showed today. I specifically wanted to run a progressive (HR) 10k focusing on % of max today. 75-85%, which is 140-160 for me. It was hot/humid and I'm slow: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/518110812

Nice! It looks like @ 20 minutes you put the after burners on and got a 6:00 pace. How long did it take you to get hr into your target zone @ 6 mph? It is a little hard to tell from the graphic. For me, if I am running 6 mph, it takes a good 10 minutes until I am up to 135. Always. It is very predictable. I have to be doing 7-8 mph after that to see 145-150. And as I said above, 10-12 mph puts me around 155-160. It is very hard for me to get above 160 unless I go faster or increase incline to 6 % or so.

Edited June 11, 2014 by Fiddleman