I'm now young again.. almost.: Garmin finally... - Bridge to 10K

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I'm now young again.. almost.

pinkaardvark profile image
pinkaardvarkGraduate10
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Garmin finally says I have a fitness age of 40 :) I'm 42. It has long been much higher than my real age so I am mightily pleased lol. My VO2 max has creeped up to 41 hence the change I think. Small things.

Had a good strong recovery run tonight after my race on sunday, funny how after a long run you can find extra strength in the legs. Helped that there was no mud also.

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pinkaardvark profile image
pinkaardvark
Graduate10
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I don't trust it. It puts my fitness age at 14 years younger than my real age, and look how slow I am (mind you, i was always a slow runner, which is why I hated it at school but loved it once i could do my own thing and flit over the horizon in embroidered fringed jeans and baseball boots - how i didn't end up with sprains I'll never know). I'm sure you're a lot fitter than me and a huge gulf fitter than most blokes your age. Being as fast and doing as much running as you do, your VO2 Max should be a lot higher than that!

pinkaardvark profile image
pinkaardvarkGraduate10 in reply to

Sure I don't trust it's accuracy either but I do think it signals an improvement I have made. I find a lot of my running is no longer in max heart zone, my cadence has increase and I do feel a bit more confident in my running so definitely worth celebrating.

I think it can be misleading as it can only statistically compare you to a cohort of people also using expensive fitness trackers which may mean i'm now in the top 50% of fit people my age lol. But still, it has gone up and I feel joy in celebrating that :) I still don't feel like a runner yet mind you....

in reply to pinkaardvark

You so ARE a runner. Your pace and times are awesome. i couldn't have matched those when i was 19. But there you see, my VO2 Max according to Ming the Merciless is really high, yet my runs are still mostly in the red heart rate zone, so I'm confused about what it bases its readings on..

pinkaardvark profile image
pinkaardvarkGraduate10 in reply to

Thanks Flick. I have come a long way and forget to celebrate that because i'm always comparing myself to what others are doing. We have all come an amazingly long way in a short pace of time regardless of age/weight/whatever.

in reply to pinkaardvark

You have the makings of an athlete, and I think the comparisons are part of that. I actually think it's ok to compare yourself with others, just as long as it acts as a spur and doesn't put you off improving. To draw a parallel, I'm a photographer and digital artist. Not so much now as I'm more confident, but in the early days I would see an amazing photo or piece of art work and think , initially, i couldn't do that, then I would regroup and be inspired and determined to up my game - then i would improve, experiment, grow.

Sqkr profile image
Sqkr

Oo where do I find fitness age? Is it in the watch or app? This sounds like another statistic I can get cheerfully obsessed with :D

pinkaardvark profile image
pinkaardvarkGraduate10 in reply to Sqkr

in the garmin connect app, under performance stats select the V02 Max menu and then the fitness age is at the bottom of that screen.

Sqkr profile image
Sqkr in reply to pinkaardvark

Oh, I don't have that :( It just tells me where my vo2 max is in comparison to others of my age. I have a forerunner 235, maybe it's not fancy enough. Boo. I found an online one here though: ntnu.edu/cerg/vo2max and it said I had a fitness age of 'under 20' (!) so although it's very clearly broken I'm sticking with it.

pinkaardvark profile image
pinkaardvarkGraduate10 in reply to Sqkr

Oh I see. I had assumed it was just an extrapolation of the V02 max against the population of garmin connect users. You have entered things like your age etc into Garmin? I guess it would need that. Both Flick and I have the fenix 5, surprised that setting would be different though to the 235

davelinks profile image
davelinksGraduate10

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