Well done to the RC Almeria Entrants

[stillwaddler]

I have been reading all your accounts for the Almeria Half last Sunday and yours was def. worth waiting for Andy! Many congratulations on your pb - chopping 5 minutes off is really quite something.

Seems that you all had a grand time. I was with you in spirit as I chugged along on my 13 mile run on Sunday (1.14 if any one is interested). Bet your weather was better, my legs were still freezing - not going fast enough I hear you mutter :-)

Are you going to do Almeria again next year? Would love to join you all if I could?

Have just watched Ellen MacArthur return to Falmouth, wow, that really was ENDURANCE...who says we're the weaker sex!

[El Gordo]

13 m-m-miles in 1:14?

[stillwaddler]

Well spotted Andy yes, that should have read 2.14 - but oh how I wish it could be 1.14!!!

Incidentally, bought a heart rate monitor at Aldi, interesting piece of kit, but what do I do with it now???? just felt that I should have one to accompany my Garmin :-)

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

Which model HRM did you buy sw?

[stillwaddler]

It's a Crane - an Aldi own brand, loads of people on the Runners World gear forum rated them quite highly, amazing value for £12.99, have cranked it up and set the time etc and it certainly works with the gym treadmill, but need to read the destructions a little to find out how to record average heart rate.

How do I find what zone etc I should be working in - in fact what is a personal zone??

I do love bits of kit!!

[El Gordo]

Sorry SW, I didn't answer your question.

Well, there is talk of organising a trip to Almeria for next year. We're working on it.

So you'd be interested?

[Mid Life Crisis Marathon Man]

How do I find what zone etc I should be working in - in fact what is a personal zone??

I feel hopelessly under-qualified to answer that question, but what I did was to simply use it for while, recording the results of my runs with the ave and max HRs for each run and each leg of each run, together with myown thoughts about how the run went. You pretty quickly get a feel for your "easy", "hard" and "$&#*ing tough" zones, which roughly equate to recovery, aerobic and anaerobic zones. Of course, if you can find out your maximum HR, you can use the zones given on any of a squillion HRM web sites. But I think they are designed for fit, young 20-somethings and don't match the real world of genuine RC runners.

At the end of day, HRMs give you a much better indication of progress than time, because you can relate your HR to every run, not just the ones where you went for a PB. You get back tired and shagged out from what should have been a moderate run, and are feeling pretty down until you check you HRM and discover your HR wasn't that high after all. And so on...

Um, which is to say, just use the thing and you'll pretty quickly discover your own "zones". It's loads of fun. And if you like spreadsheets, well, there's a whole new world of possibilities opening up for you.

Then again, you're probably a normal person, so I shouldn't have said that.

I'll go back into my shell now

P.S. Happy Birthday!

[El Gordo]

Yep, happy birthday SW.

[stillwaddler]

Many thanks for the Bday wishes - I awarded myself a lie in instead of the Hal Higdon step down of 10 miles :-) 'twas bliss!

Thanks for the info on the hrm, I will be looking into it seriously, at the moment it is lanquishing in the side pocket of my sports bag, forgot to put it on again at lunchtime for my toddle out... der.

Just for the record:-

I LOVE SPREADSHEETS

glad I've got that off my chest