This morning I met up with the Southern Cal Walkers at the Caltech track. I found out about them when I joined the North American Racewalking Foundation. It turns out that NARF managing director, racewalk instructor, coach, judge, author, (did I leave anything out?) Elaine Ward also runs this goup.
When I first saw them I thought I thought I could out pace most of the people in this group, some were older than me, some younger. But once things got moving I realised that many, OK most, of the members could easily out pace me, including most of the older ones. To add to this humbling experience, one of the members showed me an "age graded" card that lists how fast an athlete should be able to racewalk at various ages. Remember the heart rate monitor formula showed me at 29 years old? My best mile pace puts me in at around 80 years old!
We did dynamic flexibility warm up exercises followed by some 800 meter intervals.
Elaine Ward pulled me aside for a while to check out my technique and said that I looked pretty good--not fast, but that will come with practice. One thing that was a little confusing was that she said that I should get some training shoes. The New Balance 111's I was wearing don't have much support and that's fine for racing but a sturdier shoe would be better for the regular workouts. When I first started looking for racewalking shoes I read everything I could, but since there was only one racewalking model made by a major manufacturer, the choice seemed to be rather limited. After seeing the various shoes experienced racewalkers were using, choosing the right shoes for training is going to be a bit more challenging.
Here's how I did on the intervals:
1 - 5:41 - about 11:22 min/mile pace
2:30 rest (walking slowly and taking in water)
2 - 5:54 - about 11:54 min/mile pace
2:30 rest
3 - 6:06 - about 12:12 min/mile pace
2:30 rest
4 - 6:09 - about 12:18 min/mile pace
So my average pace was around 12 min/mile, though I'm still starting out too fast and ending up rather weak. I was wearing the heart rate monitor and was holding pretty steady at 170 bmp, just below what should be my interval workout rate. Next time I might be able to push it a little harder.
Tomorrow is the long slow (or long sub-threshold) walk. We're going 8 miles so taking the first half at under 160 bmp and the second half at around 170 bmp should be a good for a 12:30 min/mile pace. However, we're going to add the Santa Monica Pier bridge to the start and end of the workout to get in some hill work and I'm not sure how that will affect my pace. Still, after checking out the marathon course, some hill work is in order.
Saturday, October 7, 2006
Friday, October 6, 2006
Is Every Little Improvement Worth A Post?
I don't really know, but it is satisfying to see progress, especially on an easy day.
This morning's workout:
Mile 1 - 11:13 * New PR by 2 seconds
Mile 2 - 12:13
Mile 3 - 13:42
Average Pace - 12:23 * Also a new PR
Total Workout - 37:10 * Guess that makes this one a PR too
I strapped on the heart rate monitor and decided to keep it around 160 bpm, not bothering to look at the time too much. The first mile fealt good as I ramped up from a 150 bpm warmup before starting the first mile to 160 bpm. However, by the mile mark I went past my target heart rate so I started slowing down. My heart rate kept going up, guess that it takes a while for a change in effort to affect the heartbeat. By the middle of the second mile it was up to 173 bpm and I was having to relax to get it back down. Again, it dropped well below my target and continued to drop below 150 bpm on the second mile. The third mile I was just trying to finish the workout in one piece so I wasn't concerned too much about speed or keeping my heart rate up. Still, the average pace was pretty much what I was expecting.
Yesterday I did strength training. It does seem to be helping out. My speed is up, but I've got to work on endurance too.
This morning's workout:
Mile 1 - 11:13 * New PR by 2 seconds
Mile 2 - 12:13
Mile 3 - 13:42
Average Pace - 12:23 * Also a new PR
Total Workout - 37:10 * Guess that makes this one a PR too
I strapped on the heart rate monitor and decided to keep it around 160 bpm, not bothering to look at the time too much. The first mile fealt good as I ramped up from a 150 bpm warmup before starting the first mile to 160 bpm. However, by the mile mark I went past my target heart rate so I started slowing down. My heart rate kept going up, guess that it takes a while for a change in effort to affect the heartbeat. By the middle of the second mile it was up to 173 bpm and I was having to relax to get it back down. Again, it dropped well below my target and continued to drop below 150 bpm on the second mile. The third mile I was just trying to finish the workout in one piece so I wasn't concerned too much about speed or keeping my heart rate up. Still, the average pace was pretty much what I was expecting.
Yesterday I did strength training. It does seem to be helping out. My speed is up, but I've got to work on endurance too.
Wednesday, October 4, 2006
Failure/Success
This morning I tried doing my usual 3 mile workout as a tempo walk. As I understand it a tempo workout is done at the same effort throughout. Using my heartrate table I see that I should be doing the tempo workout at 172 bpm. After some warm up exercises I started out fast at about 150 bpm. Around half-mile I was only up to 160 bpm and wondering if I could continue this for 3 miles. Approaching the mile mark I was finally up to 170 bpm and fealt like I was falling apart so I stopped the workout at mile one.
So I failed to do my tempo walk, but surprised myself when I checked the time:
11:15 - New PR by 25 seconds!
After a short rest I was thinking about doing another mile so I took off, this time starting much faster and got my heart rate up to 170 in the first 200 meters. However, I didn't feel that I could keep this up for the entire mile so I stopped before injuring myself and went home to do some stretching.
I'll research how to do tempo and interval workouts before trying it again. It looks like I should probably start with shorter distances and work my way up. Doing three miles at 172 bpm was too much at my current fitness level.
So I failed to do my tempo walk, but surprised myself when I checked the time:
11:15 - New PR by 25 seconds!
After a short rest I was thinking about doing another mile so I took off, this time starting much faster and got my heart rate up to 170 in the first 200 meters. However, I didn't feel that I could keep this up for the entire mile so I stopped before injuring myself and went home to do some stretching.
I'll research how to do tempo and interval workouts before trying it again. It looks like I should probably start with shorter distances and work my way up. Doing three miles at 172 bpm was too much at my current fitness level.
Tuesday, October 3, 2006
Strength Training Day
This morning instead of doing my usual 3 mile walk I did some Racewalking Exercises . Hope it is okay to post this document on my blog.
It looks easy but it certainly isn't. I don't have all the goodies to do every exercise so I skipped around a bit. Still, I went to the point of total muscle fatigue on several exercises. It would probably be best to do these exercises after a hard walk to get the most benefit, but right now I should set aside at least two days per week on strength training.
One thing not to leave out of any exercise program--stretch at the end of the workout. It was quite painful going through the workout, but I did feel good once it was all over.
It looks easy but it certainly isn't. I don't have all the goodies to do every exercise so I skipped around a bit. Still, I went to the point of total muscle fatigue on several exercises. It would probably be best to do these exercises after a hard walk to get the most benefit, but right now I should set aside at least two days per week on strength training.
One thing not to leave out of any exercise program--stretch at the end of the workout. It was quite painful going through the workout, but I did feel good once it was all over.
New L.A. Marathon Course
Sunday we drove through the new proposed L.A. Marathon Course.
It doesn't have lots of hills, though there is one around mile 18 that might cause problems. Some of the course has long gentle ups and downs, and many miles of unimpressive scenery. The road is in need of repair in lots of areas and it is almost all concrete and asphalt.
The biggest change is that it will be a point-to-point race starting at Universal Studios and ending up in Downtown.
It was quite humbling driving in L.A. traffic and knowing that the fastest wheel chair racers will get through it faster than we were able to complete the course by car.
One thing is for certain, I'll have to add some hill work to my racewalking training!
It doesn't have lots of hills, though there is one around mile 18 that might cause problems. Some of the course has long gentle ups and downs, and many miles of unimpressive scenery. The road is in need of repair in lots of areas and it is almost all concrete and asphalt.
The biggest change is that it will be a point-to-point race starting at Universal Studios and ending up in Downtown.
It was quite humbling driving in L.A. traffic and knowing that the fastest wheel chair racers will get through it faster than we were able to complete the course by car.
One thing is for certain, I'll have to add some hill work to my racewalking training!
Monday, October 2, 2006
More on Heart Rate Training
I found some more information about heart rate based training on Jeff Salvage's racewalk.com web site. He suggests using resting heart rate as part of the percentage of maximum heart rate calculation on his Heart Rate page. However, he is also using the old 220 - Age to determine maximum heart rate and Dave McGovern pretty much proved that is not accurate.
During Saturday's long walk my heart was beating faster than the 65 - 75% of maximum heart rate recommended for a general endurance workout. However, combining the maximum heart rate as calculated in the clinic with the resting heart rate from Jeff Salvage, things are starting to look much better.
Once again, my maximum heart rate as tested in the racewalking clinic was 191 and my resting heart rate as measured this morning was 63. These numbers will vary from day-to-day and hopefully improve over time so that I'll eventually have to re-evaluate, but they should be close enough for the next several weeks of training.
Here is the formula:
Goal Heart Rate = (Maximum Heart Rate - Resting Heart Rate) * Percentage of Max HR Desired + Resting Heart Rate
So plugging in the numbers, here are the various workouts, rounded off the the nearest heart beat:
Those harder workouts look really scary. In the clinic I was able to get my heart rate up to 173, but more on that in a moment. How do these numbers compare with just a straight percentage of maximum heart rate?
Again, I don't have enough experience with the heart rate monitor and haven't tried any economy or VO2 Max workouts to know what it feels like to approach these effort levels. The long walk I did on Saturday does seem to validate the formula with the resting heart rate factored in.
Finally, here are the numbers from the racewalk clinic. We did this on a 400 meter track, measuring our heart rate every 2 minutes for 8 minutes, taking a 1 minute rest and repeating 3 times:
I don't have all of the recovery heart rates which were recorded 1 minute after each set, but my last was 137. That's a little too high and Dave McGovern recommended that I do some speed work to improve recovery.
According to the handout we got at the clinic, most people should get up to around 90-92% of maximum heart rate in this 30 minute workout. A 5K race could also be used for this test, spot checking the heart rate at about the 2 mile mark. Dividing that figure by .9 and that's a fairly close estimate of the maximum heart rate. In my case the average of all the readings is just over 171 so 172 / .9 = 191 maximum heart rate.
During Saturday's long walk my heart was beating faster than the 65 - 75% of maximum heart rate recommended for a general endurance workout. However, combining the maximum heart rate as calculated in the clinic with the resting heart rate from Jeff Salvage, things are starting to look much better.
Once again, my maximum heart rate as tested in the racewalking clinic was 191 and my resting heart rate as measured this morning was 63. These numbers will vary from day-to-day and hopefully improve over time so that I'll eventually have to re-evaluate, but they should be close enough for the next several weeks of training.
Here is the formula:
Goal Heart Rate = (Maximum Heart Rate - Resting Heart Rate) * Percentage of Max HR Desired + Resting Heart Rate
So plugging in the numbers, here are the various workouts, rounded off the the nearest heart beat:
Workout % of MHR Heart Rate Calculation Heart Rate
Easy Distance 70 (191 - 63) * .70 + 63 153
Tempo/Interval 85 (191 - 63) * .85 + 63 172
Economy 90 (191 - 63) * .90 + 63 178
VO2 Max 95 (191 - 63) * .95 + 63 185
Those harder workouts look really scary. In the clinic I was able to get my heart rate up to 173, but more on that in a moment. How do these numbers compare with just a straight percentage of maximum heart rate?
Workout % of MHR Heart Rate Calculation Heart Rate
Easy Distance 70 191 * .70 134
Tempo/Interval 85 191 * .85 162
Economy 90 191 * .90 172
VO2 Max 95 191 * .95 181
Again, I don't have enough experience with the heart rate monitor and haven't tried any economy or VO2 Max workouts to know what it feels like to approach these effort levels. The long walk I did on Saturday does seem to validate the formula with the resting heart rate factored in.
Finally, here are the numbers from the racewalk clinic. We did this on a 400 meter track, measuring our heart rate every 2 minutes for 8 minutes, taking a 1 minute rest and repeating 3 times:
_ Set 1 Set 2 Set 3
2 min. 168 166 172
4 min. 171 171 173
6 min. 169 169 173
8 min. 170 170 173
I don't have all of the recovery heart rates which were recorded 1 minute after each set, but my last was 137. That's a little too high and Dave McGovern recommended that I do some speed work to improve recovery.
According to the handout we got at the clinic, most people should get up to around 90-92% of maximum heart rate in this 30 minute workout. A 5K race could also be used for this test, spot checking the heart rate at about the 2 mile mark. Dividing that figure by .9 and that's a fairly close estimate of the maximum heart rate. In my case the average of all the readings is just over 171 so 172 / .9 = 191 maximum heart rate.
Progressive Walk
I wanted to start out rather easy this morning and get progressively faster throughout the workout. I tried it with the heart rate monitor and here are the results:
Mile 1 - 14:15 - 130 bpm
Mile 2 - 13:10 - 151 bpm
Mile 3 - 12:39 - 161 bpm
It looks like I took it too easy at the start and never got up to a very hard effort, but I was pushing myself quite hard. I would have liked to have seen times at least :30 seconds faster all around. I've got plenty of excuses, still recovering from the 18 mile walk a couple of days ago, it was a little wet and slippery this morning and I was a little stiff from too much sleep these last couple of days. I'll try it again later in the week and see if there is any improvement.
As long as I was doing some heart rate monitoring, here are some other readings that I did this morning:
Resting in bed -- 63 bpm
Walking around house -- 80 bpm
Pre-workout warm up -- 90 bpm
Recovery 2-minutes after finishing workout -- 110 bpm
One of the issues that came up in Dave McGovern's clinic was that it took too long for my heart rate to recover to "normal" and some speed work should help with that. In addition, some strength training should help with the speed so it looks like I've got plenty of work to do between those long weekend walks.
Mile 1 - 14:15 - 130 bpm
Mile 2 - 13:10 - 151 bpm
Mile 3 - 12:39 - 161 bpm
It looks like I took it too easy at the start and never got up to a very hard effort, but I was pushing myself quite hard. I would have liked to have seen times at least :30 seconds faster all around. I've got plenty of excuses, still recovering from the 18 mile walk a couple of days ago, it was a little wet and slippery this morning and I was a little stiff from too much sleep these last couple of days. I'll try it again later in the week and see if there is any improvement.
As long as I was doing some heart rate monitoring, here are some other readings that I did this morning:
Resting in bed -- 63 bpm
Walking around house -- 80 bpm
Pre-workout warm up -- 90 bpm
Recovery 2-minutes after finishing workout -- 110 bpm
One of the issues that came up in Dave McGovern's clinic was that it took too long for my heart rate to recover to "normal" and some speed work should help with that. In addition, some strength training should help with the speed so it looks like I've got plenty of work to do between those long weekend walks.
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