I am a thirsty runner

Got a pretty good 4-miler in on Saturday. This run was squeezed in between other commitments, so I felt a little rushed, but it turned out OK. There was some walking still, evident from the graph in the minor dips, but look how regular those intervals are! This was the first time I really got up to Prospect Park and I ran over to the water fountain at 9th street, making the whole route exactly four miles. I'm a little surprised my Nike+ recorded this accurately, as a matter of fact.

The only downer was that I was counting on the water fountain, but it was shut off. Of course it was - it's winter. What was I thinking? So I was pretty thirsty going home, but not thirsty enough to drop cash on a bottle of water.

The run was slow, but not horribly so. I had a good last kilometer, quite steady and smooth. The big dip you see in the graph was me stopping to deposit a check. Didn't take but a minute, but you know what that can do to your pace charts.

Tomorrow beings the official training for St. Louis half-marathon. I'm nervous because I am still not doing three miles unbroken by walking, but that might change soon. I've taken some steps toward becoming a better runner, one of which was to respond to several classifieds on NYRR.org advertising for running partners. I have had one response and we will try to coordinate something next weekend. I know it can take a while to find the right person as a running partner, so I'll be patient. I just hope my CF doesn't get in the way.

The other step is that I have finally, finally, FINALLY, upgraded my hard drive, installed Windoze on a separate partition, and put the Polar running software on there and managed to actually sync my watch! What this means is that I should have much more detailed graphs and information and really start training in my optimal heart rate zone.



This is an example of the graph that I see in the Polar trainer software. The online version is similar; perhaps clearer to read. This should be very informational as time goes by.

This graph is from a short walk tonight. It's 1.1 miles. If you click the graph, you'll get a bigger version. The colored bands in the very back are meant to indicate workout intensity, as indicated by heartrate, which is the jagged graph with the thin red line. You can see a coughing fit about 7 minutes into my walk. The thick red line is altitutde - I was headed downhill, after all. I will probably not track this one often - only on new courses and maybe during races. The yellow line is my cadence, or strides per minute. Being walking, you'd expect this to be fairly constant. Any breaks are explained by pausing to wait for a light to change. The blue line at the bottom is actual pace per mile. Again, those dips are happening while waiting for lights to change. I hope to post another graph Monday with an actual run.