Out early for my run and visiting my local Park Run venue today to suss it out. Plan was to run for 30mins at a nice steady jog. Love these early morning starts in the cool air and solitude. Did my warm up walk up the hill and started jogging after 5 minutes or so. Completed the first lap and ran up the hill again past the car park and tackled the second lap. After 30 minutes was up I had travelled 4.2k and could see the car park across the playing fields. The route was flat and then very slightly downhill to the car park so I thought "What's a mere 0.8k more? I could get to 5 k here again!" So that's what I did and completed my second 5k in a row😀. So 2 runs, 2 x5k and 2 different venues. A lot of this running lark is mental. But I thought" I've done it once so I can do it again".........not in the 30 minutes but it's given me the confidence now that realistically I can get to 5k now whenever I need to and that means the Park Runs are within reach when they restart.👍👍Happy running everyone😀
5.03k / 36:34min / 7'16"
Written by
MontyMooDog
Graduate
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Good luck to you on your consolidation runs. Have you got anything mapped out yet? Be sure to post your experiences on here as it helps everyone along together I feel👍😀
“What’s a mere 0.8K more...” 😂 it would kill me, I think!
Well done! 👍 I think you’ve got these consolidation runs covered. You have a plan and it’s coming to fruition! And you are enjoying the runs. Nice pace!
Thanks. I think I just get into a rhythm and keep going. If my heart rate goes up over my training zone I just back off the pace a bit. I think I will try a shorter run next time. Maybe try the "Speed" podcast but I think the cadence may be a bit too high for me yet🤔
You’ve lost me! Well, not quite lost but I’m not really looking at my heart rate as I don’t know what it should be. I probably have the data. Is cadence strides per minute? I’m not clear how that fits in. Should I be thinking about lengthening my stride? I quite like the idea of playing with more data.
I was creosoting the fence, but managed to get to this and read your link. It sounds good! I wonder if recording everything on my Garmin watch will be enough or if I’ll have to get a heart rate monitor. Anyway, I’m interested enough to want to know more.
Ha ha. So what we need to know is can you get your heart rate off your watch when you are running? And what data does it store to your Garmin app and Strava?
I think it shows heart rate while I’m running. It stores average and maximum heart rate on Strava. The same on Garmin Connect, plus a bar chart of 4 different zones!!
When I am running I can look at my watch and see my current heart rate. My watch has a multi coloured band round the edge of the display which links into my personal heart rate zones as follows :
Blue is the warm up zone 50 to 60% of maximum heart rate
Green is the fat burning zone 61 to 70% of maximum heart rate
Yellow is the aerobic zone 71 to 80% of maximum heart rate
Orange is the anaerobic zone 81 to 90% of maximum heart rate
Red is the extreme zone 91 to 100% of maximum heart rate
When I run the objective is to keep the heart rate in the Yellow and Orange zones because at that heart rate my body is getting fitter quicker.
If it is in the blue and green zones I'm not working hard enough so to work harder I need to increase my steps per minute (cadence).
If it is in the red zone I am working too hard and need to decrease my steps per minute (cadence)
If I go uphill for the same cadence my heart rate will increase as I have to work harder up the hill. So to counteract that I decrease my cadence and run slower.
Conversely if I run downhill it's easier and my heart rate will drop so I could increase my cadence and therefore run faster.
So it's important that you can glean information off your stats, Garmin app and Strava to see what your body is doing, and also know how to apply that knowledge to your advantage going forward.
My watch talks to me as I run, telling me my current heart rate, my pace over the last 0.5k, the distance I have travelled etc. It also has a built in virtual running companion ( pacer) so I can tell if I am ahead of my pacer or behind my pacer and I can act accordingly. All of these features are fully customizable on the watch.
I get it. I can’t paste it on here. I’m going to have to go for a run around the garden and / or find the detailed user manual online to investigate. Obviously you need to know as you are running which zone you are in. I’m not sure if my watch has that capability. Thanks for your help. I’ll let you know.
Thank you so much for your help with this. I’ll have to read this one tomorrow as my brain has gone into overload with all the info, but I really appreciate your time and effort in helping me to understand it all 🙏 .
Yes! Managed (eventually) to customise what appears on the watch as I run. Screen 2 is now heart rate showing the zones in a similar way to your watch 😀 Now to find out how to ascertain my maximum heart rate and how to set up the zones!
Read everything twice to understand! Reconfigured screen 1 of my watch to show cadence as well as pace, distance and timer. All heart rate data is estimated but that should do for now. Heart rate zones are all on screen 2 of my watch. I know what my heart rate should be when I’m running - it actually was mainly in those 2 zones yesterday anyway, but it’s been a good exercise for me to understand. I certainly understand my watch much better, too! Thanks for spending the time. Now I just need to run faster.
That's great. To run faster you just need to increase your cadence. Don't try to increase your stride length. When you do a run try to find a way to post the Garmin data on the forum. I'll take a look and tell you what's what...👍
That's fantastic!! Well done. I love your positive attitude 👍. Such a good idea to go and check out your local park run she says as she madly Googles where hers is 🤣.
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Consolidation Run 3 ✅ 
1st Park run 🏃♂️ - and consolidation run 3
Consolidation run 3
Consolidation run 4 and my first 5K!
