On Deciding . . . Better 3.0

207 Hours in 2007

Last Febuary, needing a new heart rate monitor, I invested in a Garmin Forerunner 305. It’s an oversized watch unit with a built in GPS unit, wireless heart rate monitor and, with a bicycle accessory, cadence sensor. I chose it because it was flexible for running or cycling and, most importantly, because I would finally be able to track workouts on the computer.

While Garmin had finally started supporting the Mac with it’s software, I ended up using Ascent from Montebello Software. Based on appearances, I presume that Ascent is a Cocoa based program that integrates with Microsoft TerraServer and Virtual Earth for mapping. While the maps and the workout data displays are nice, what I find most useful is the journal function

Since Feburary, I know I’ve lost a few hours of recording because a dead battery in the Garmin. And when I do my 15-20 minute Pilates stretch and core strength routine, I can’t wear the monitor. Weight training and any swimming haven’t gotten recorded either. So I’m tracking running and cycling for the most part.

Since the Journal tracks by day, week, month and year, today I finish the first calendar year with the system. Since I didn’t have the unit during January, I’ll need to extrapolate the missing data.

During 2007 I totaled 207 hours of activity. That’s about 19 hours a month or a bit less than 5 hours a week. Of course there was a good bit of variability with months ranging from 22 hours in April to a low of 14 hours in August. During the year I realized that time was a constraint- family, vacations and business travel making many days unavailable for exercise. One of my adaptations was to use those weeks as rest weeks and pile up extra activity in the week before if possible.

It’s clear that I could do better simply by being more consistant on easy days. I can also be a bit smarter about matching time to intensity. For example, when I have a couple of weeks during the summer with limited travel, I can use the flexibility of my schedule to move to lower intensity, longer duration workouts. During the tough travel times, I can do consistent days that are shorter, but higher intensity. Overall, though it’s unlikely that I’ll be able to push total training time above 250 hours.

Am I more Fit This Year Than Last?

When I set up this new weblog, I made my categories into goals. My fitness goal was simply to be more fit this year than last. I didn’t set objective criteria at the time, but there are a few that emerged. Of course, there’s weight. Today I was at 156.5 pounds. Last year, I was at 160.5, so there’s an objective improvement. As well, I’ve taken about an inch and a half off my waistline, so my fat loss may have been more that the 4 pounds of total weight. Psychologically, my stress level is low and I’ve had fewer colds and viruses this year than in years past.

I’ve tracked fitness somewhat using field testing as suggested by Chris Carmichael. My 12 minute Cooper Fitness Test, my running test has improved from 1.125 miles last August to 1.38 miles last month. Based on the standard calculations, that means that my VO2 Max has improved from 29 to 34, a 17% improvement. I haven’t had a long enough interval to judge my progress on the Carmichael 3 mile maximal effort cycling test, but based on my riding speeds, I expect that I’m faster there. I’m doing base miles at speeds of 13 to 14 mph this year rather than 11 to 12 that I was doing early last year.

Sadly, I’ve just managed to get myself into the average category for age. I’m not a naturally gifted endurance athelete and for years my exercise was always just recreational- hiking or long cycling. I have no trouble training to go long, I just can’t go fast. So while I’m clearly responding to training stimuli, I likely lack the genetic capability to ride or run really fast because of my limitations in oxygen use efficiency.

But knowing that my clear limiter is VO2Max and not strength or endurance gives me a focus for training this year. I’d like to see to what extent I can use last year as a platform to get another 10 to 20% gain by this time next year. If I take off another 6 pounds and put on some more lean weight, my strength to weight ratio should be better and performance should improve.

In the end, I’m deeply grateful to be able to be working on my athleticism as I enter my 50’s rather than dealing with the onset of chronic illness of aging.

On the local bicycle club mailing list I saw this link to an interesting report on very short intervals. There are links to the thesis there, so one can review the data itself. The investigators first examined the physiological effects of very short, high intensity intervals, comparing first 8 s work followed by 12 s rest vs 24 s work and 36 s rest. There was little difference physiologically, but the 8/12 sequence was preferred by the subjects. In the following 15 week training study the 8 second / 12 second 20 minute interval training was compared to a 40 min standard cardio workout at 60% of VO2 peak..

For some reason I was very interested in trying it. This morning I put on the heart rate monitor and tried to use my strength exercise as the stimulus- working hard with light weight for 8 seconds, resting for 12 and going continuously for 20 minutes. It didn’t work at all, because as I always find with continuous circuit training I feel the effort, but my heart rate never gets very high even though I’m working hard. I get to audible breathing, but I remain in at a low level of aerobic exertion based on heart rate.

Not wanting to give up, I gave it 20 minutes on the bike. I picked a resistance on the trainer that felt like work for 8 seconds followed by “just turning the pedals over” for 12 seconds. And the workout was quite intense. It’s seems like it’s quite self regulating to get one working very quickly just above lactate threshold. The rest periods are no where near long enough to recover and and the work periods I kept to short of painful, since I was going to be doing this for 20 minutes. Over about 10 minutes then, my heartrate stair-stepped up to about LTHR and slowly moved moved beyond it in the second 10 minutes.

I think it’s a nice way to build intensity on a trainer while stressing the aerobic system primarily. I could see pushing the workout over time to longer than 20 minutes, since I felt a modest amount of fatigue after the workout. I’ll see how ready I am tomorrow, which is the true test of workout intensity, but tonight my guess is that it’s a moderate, not a hard workout and I probably could do it again tomorrow.

It’s 47*F in Baltimore and sunny. I took advantage of the weather to go out on a slow recovery ride (1hr 20min). Yesterday I ran 7.5 miles on tired legs and this was the best break I could imagine. Since it was a recovery ride I brought the Nikon P5000 and stopped a few times to grab some shots. I thought they might serve as sketches to remind me of the scenery. I’ve watched these potential images go whizzing by during training rides before, but never stopped to capture them. Wearing my yellow tinted sunglasses always makes them look even more appealing.

Last year I didn’t start putting in milage on the bike until early March, so I had come up with a plan to ride 6 months and run during the rest of the year. I planned on cross training so I wouldn’t go completely out of riding or running shape during the year. I knew that I needed to keep up some running as it’s my best option for fitness during business travel. In October I switched over, putting the bicycle aside and started building mileage. As I finished up 3 months of mostly running, I had built to a 12 mile long run, taking me just about 2 and a half hours. My fitness, at least for running was measurably increasing.

My most important realization was how much I was gaining from higher intensity intevals approaching VO2 max. And with running, it was easier to get there given the weight bearing nature of the exercise and my low efficiency as a runner. Running is great during the winter because I feel comfortable running at temperatures and in weather conditions that keep me off the bicycle.

Having taken a few months to focus on running, I’ve decided to try to take January, February and March to build a base that will have me ready for intervals in April through May when the weather is better, but time is often short.