ksylvan's Journal

P90X Round 4 Day 38: Back and Biceps + experimenting with running style.
Jun 10 2009 12:35

Yesterday, late in the night, I did this run.

What's remarkable about the run is that I changed my running gait based on information I am reading about the POSE method of running. Instead of running heel-toe (trying to lengthen the stride and strike with the foot out front, striking the heel and rolling onto the toe) I adopted a style with a much shorter gait and a higher cadence, landing my foot in line with the body, with a bent-knee at the point of ground contact, with my whole body leaning slightly forward and taking advantage of gravity to pull me down and forward, a sort of controlled falling.

Looking at the splits page, I see the that I ran mile 1 at a pace of 9:52 min/mi, mile 2 at 10:10 min/mi, and mile 3 at 9:37 min/mi.

What's more, I could tell that this style of running was a lot easier on my joints and more effortless to maintain!

Here's an interesting study done on this topic that informed my self experimentation.

P90X Round 4 Day 35: Early morning training run
Jun 07 2009 11:45

Trying to eat cleaner (radically reduce the processed foods, less carbohydrates, more protein and fats than I have been eating) thanks to sharpshootinstar's example. I'll also be reading the Master Your Metabolism book from the library when it comes in.

This morning, I did this run.

I'm being a lazy bum the rest of the morning since I did all my housework yesterday.

Have a great Sunday, my friends!

P90X Round 4 Day 32: Yoga-X and a short run
Jun 04 2009 18:38

I have another day off tomorrow. :-)

Today's workouts were Yoga-X and this run.

Looking forward to So You Think You Can Dance tonight!

P90X Round 4 Day 30: Plyometrics + 30 minute run later
Jun 02 2009 11:58

Back at work today.

Yesterday, I did the Chest, Shoulders and Triceps routine.

Today's workout is Plyometrics. Later tonight, I will also do a 30 minute run.

I hope you are all having a great week!

Update: Here is the heart rate graph for the Plyometrics workout from this afternoon. I think spike up to 160 towards the end is for the Jump-Knee-Tuck move. :-)

P90X Round 4 Day 28: 9 mile training run
May 31 2009 23:49

I'm continuing to explore the idea of controlling my pace during my training runs with heart rate zones.

I just did this 9 mile run. Started my runs in heart rate zone 2 and slowly worked up to running for a mile in heart rate zone 4. In practical terms, this meant starting out rather slow and slowly ramping up the intensity (and thus the speed). I also put in lots of walk breaks.

The results: This run's average pace was 11:16, finished in 1:43:24. Wow! Jeff Galloway was right about taking walk breaks. This is the best time I have so far for a run of this distance.

In comparison, the San Jose Rock and Roll Half Marathon (13.1 miles) in October of 2008, running without walk breaks, finished in 2:41:28 with average pace of 12:19. The Big Sur Marathon (26.2 miles) with walk breaks, finished in 5:49:11 with average pace 13:20.

Tomorrow, I start the second month routines for my 4th round of P90X.

P90X Round 4 Day 25: X-Stretch + Running
May 28 2009 23:02

Yesterday's workout was the Kenpo-X DVD.

Today, it was the Stretch-X routine.

In the evening, I did this run.

I'm starting to be able to hold a faster pace for slightly longer periods of time. I can see it in the data.

Tomorrow and Monday are vacation days for me. Basically, I get a four day weekend. Yay!

I hope you are all having a great week.

P90X Round 4 day 23: Core synergistics + run
May 26 2009 20:50

Today was the core synergistics DVD (easy week for P90X) and in the afternoon, I did this run.

I've been playing around with heart rate zones and did a graduated run (started in zone 1 - easy recovery run - slowly went up to zone 2 and zone 3, pushed myself into zone 4 and then into zone 5 for a full minute and a half and then reversed the process).

The difference between zone 4 and zone 5 is the difference between a nice hard (but somewhat sustainable) pace and hell, but looking at the data, it looks like I reached an average speed of about 7:23 minutes/mile during my 90 seconds in hell. Very very interesting. 

Anyhow... Tomorrow's workout is Kenpo-X.

I hope you are all having a great day. Only a couple of more days till Friday. ;-)

Sunday run (lactate threshold test)
May 24 2009 11:27

Hi everyone,

wesmckean on the Fitness forum pointed me to the lactate threshold test as a good way to set up the heart rate zones; I want to use heart rate zones to maximize the results from my training runs.

So, this morning, I ran the test: a ten minute slow jog followed by twenty minutes at the fastest sustainable rate I could run.

Here are the summary results of the whole run.

The splits pane shows my heart rate breakdowns for the ten minute jog and the twenty minutes at max effort.

Apparently, the average HR in the 20-minute segment (190) is the bottom number of heart rate zone 5. I think that means that my true max heart rate is 204. At the end of this run, I was winded, but within about 5 minutes I felt fine again.

Anyhow, that's my Sunday so far. Going to Church in the afternoon.

Hope you are all having a good weekend.

A short run and a question about heart rates
May 21 2009 14:30

Hi everyone.

My resting heart rate is somewhere in the 50's and after vigorous exercise settles down into the 60-65 range within about 5 minutes.

According to several formulas, a 42 year old man should have a "maximum" heart rate of 185.

I just did this short run consisting of 8 repeated intervals of 3 minutes jogging and 1 minute walking:

http://connect.garmin.com/player/5874362

Looking at this data, I'm fairly certain that for my more sustained runs (say, 6 miles of running) that my heart rate goes to the 170-180's and stays there for the entire duration of the run. Is there anything wrong with that?

If I push myself (say, try to sprint in the last 3 miles of a long run) I'm pretty sure my heart will beat faster than the "maximum" of 185. Is there anything wrong with that?

Thanks for any responses.

P90X Round 4 Day 17: Shoulders and Arms + Ab Ripper X
May 20 2009 13:05

Did my P90X workout today.

I am looking forward to mindless TV tonight (American Idol Finale). Yay!