Finally, the temperatures warmed up to the mid-teens and I was able to get outside running. I took it nice and easy with a run/walk regimen after about a 10-minute walk/warm-up.
Run x1 minute/walk x2 minutes repeat x 5.
I am easing back into running so that hopefully in about 6 weeks I will be able to run without the walk breaks. My cool-down was extensive being that I also took Demi for a walk afterwards.
This was followed by another bike ride on Tuesday and then I repeated the run on Wednesday. For now, I am trying to get in at minimum 3 days of running per week with at least three days of crosstraining consisting of biking, skiing, or snowshoeing. I am continuing the light strengthening and stretching exercises as well.
During my biking and running this week, I was using my new Fenix Garmin 6s pro which monitors wrist heart rate. Like I mentioned in a previous post, I don’t normally monitor this kind of data. I just go with how I am feeling. And I was feeling good! Yes, of course, my heart rate went up when I was going up hills and I did feel that effort but it definitely wasn’t an all-out effort. The runs especially have felt really easy! So, keeping to my promise to look at the data and evaluate its use, I found it alarming.
So the peak heart rate can be expected I suppose, but even the average of 122 bpm and 127 bpm respectively was still 77-80% of my maximum heart rate. According to some heart rate training tables that is pretty high for my age at such an easy effort. So, the question is: How accurate are these Garmin heart rate watches? This will be something I will be researching and updating in a future post.
Something New
I am not a big fan of Gu energy gels. The texture is weird and in my experience, it is just so concentrated that it causes stomach upset. But, I received a 6 month gift subscription to StrideBox from Sonja that actually turned into a year long subscription when she extended it. Stridebox is a gift box for runners wich includes a wide variety of products and accessories. My goal is to find some kind of enegy bar, drink, or mix for when I get to the point of longer distances. So, I think that I should try something now to see what I can tolerate. Searching through the striboxes I came across a packet of lemonaide liquid Gu. Intrigued, I gave it a try. It was actually pretty good and went down really smooth. So, I definitely will be adding this to my list of energy drinks and gel trials for marathon training.
Family
Scott and I are excited to be going to Hawaii with Sonja, Matt, and the kids. We are all looking forward to this trip. With omicron hitting Alaska pretty hard these past few weeks, it has been pretty stressful making sure everybody stays healthy and covid free. Everybody that needed to get tested has been negative and all information loaded onto the safe travels website. Traveling can be stressful in itself, but whew!! I think I won’t relax until we are actually on the plane. So many flights have also been canceled. Hopefully, I will have pictures of all of us in Hawaii soon!!
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