In the two weeks since the marathon I've divided my training time between running and biking. With a combination of temptation and suspicion, I'm eyeing the next challenge: The Triathlon.
Running comes naturally, and I've really taken to cycling in the past few months. Swimming, on the other hand, is my lifelong nemesis.
We recently visited the local YMCA to find out about their pool. The next adult swimming lessons begin Aug. 26 and go for four weeks. I'm going take this class and then decide whether triathlons are in my future.
In the meantime, I got a new training gadget as a reward for finishing the marathon. It is a Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS with heart rate monitor. It tells me my pace, distance, heart rate, interval time and myriad other details while I'm on the course. And when I download the data to my PC, I can visualize my training in a series of handy graphs. It's really a giant hunk of hardware masquerading as a watch (and in fact, it doesn't even tell the time of day in the default view.) But it's 1/10th the size of my old handheld GPS, and unlike its predecessor, it actually works while running.
The Motion Based web site lets me view and share stats and running courses. This page shows my recent running and biking (and one of Wella's runs when she borrowed the watch).
I hope to use this new gadget to track my cardiovascular progress. Right now, I get winded very quickly as the intensity increases. That's what happened during that 8 mile ride in Los Altos on the 10th. I passed a fellow cyclist at 22 MPH and pedaled hard for the next mile... then I hit the wall and had to soft-pedal it home. The graph tells the story:
Even after running consistently for the last six months, I still feel like I'm stuck in second gear. Somehow a 9 minute mile feels fast. If I said that to my 17 year old self (back when I ran track), I'd suffer endless shame. I'm not quite ready to accept that my age is catching up to me. It must be that there is still room for improvement. Especially in the cardiovascular department. My resting heart rate hovers around the 60 BPM mark. I think I can do better.
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