Morning all you lovely C25Kers - Aussie here reporting in as promised on Run 2 of the Aussie210K plan... Another warm morning in London so it's up at 6am to beat the heat. An energy bar, a big glass of water and it's on with the gear... Being Friday the 13th, I decided to mess with my routine a bit:
1) Ran for the first time ever without my knee strap...
2) Ran for the first time ever with the Garmin...
3) Ran for the first time ever with a SPIBelt with my phone inside it....
4) Ran for the first time ever in a fancy Ronhill pursuit running vest (although I need to build my biceps I think!)...
I'd programmed the workouts in my Aussie210K plan into the Garmin and after heading out the door hit the start button. After 5 minutes my arm starts vibrating and beeping wildly telling me it's time to run... Apparently I'd also set it to alert me if I go too fast or too slow and I found this help me set my pace to a nice and comfortable 6:30 per km...
So - 6.15km covered this morning in the 40 minutes. I felt really good at the end of the run and now have more than enough stats from the Garmin to keep me busy all morning... some of the interesting bits due to the new improved HR monitor and chest mounted accelerometer :
1) My cadence is around 160bpm so that's not too bad...
2) Vertical oscillation is for the most part in the "green zone" - remember when Laura spoke about bouncing up and down if someone was watching you on the other side of a hedge? That's the vertical oscillation thingy... 
3) Ground contact time is "amber"... (ie. feet are on the ground a bit longer than optimal - haha)
4) Average pace was spot on 6:30/km (a 32:30 5K).
5) VO2 Max is 40ml/kg/min - yep - you bet... apparently this is "good" for my age... happy with that and it'll adjust the more workouts I do...
Basically - to run faster I need to speed up and get my feet off the ground quicker... thanks Garmin! Haha! It does show though that my running "style" isn't too far from where it needs to be so that's a handy thing to note... All the other stats are amusement value but boy do I love stats...
Other interesting things the Garmin decided to tell me:
1) That I should recover from this over 72 hours (not 48) - I will ignore that for now (see below)
2) That my training effort was a 5.0 (over-reaching) - again I will ignore that for now (see below)
3) That my race predictor for a 10k is 53:55 and 5K is 25:55 - HAHAHA! Yeah - right!
The reason I'm ignoring 1 and 2 (and laughing at 3) is that I think these gadgets can only do so much in telling you from a mathematical model what your body is doing. I can tell all you lovely lot that although I pushed myself a little this morning I certainly didn't feel like I couldn't keep going at the end and I certainly didn't feel like I'd pushed myself too far... I am pushing, but gently... I feel great!
My knee held up fine and I had been thinking for a while I was just wearing the strap as I was too afraid to take it off in case my knee muscles somehow collapsed without it. Guess what? They didn't and it appears I've built up strength now so I'm going to continue (with caution) sans strap...
Next time I may even run naked... stay tuned for that report on Sunday....
BTW - in case you can't tell - I LOVE the Garmin and the GPS tracking was spot on (except when I went through a tunnel of course!)... it beeping to tell me to speed up when I flagged was great fun (not!)...
Happy running campers... watch out for black cats and witches hats today... no running under ladders!
EDIT: It appears the training effect/recovery estimates are based on Heart Rates... basically, unless you absolutely know your Max HR, it's using a formula that is "average at best" to work it out... so as I have a BUPA medical coming soon I'm going to do a proper stress test on a treadmill and work out my max HR properly...
Nice and slow recovery run...
Oh dear! Another PB over 5km
Week 9 Run 2 (W9R2)
