I am starting a new tactic in my training which is part of the reason for this blog. In the past few years, I have been continually improving, setting new PR's in different categories of races but I wanted to take my training to the next level. My far reaching goal is to actually qualify for the Boston Marathon.
My chiropractor advised that I start using a heart rate monitor and loaned me a couple of books on how to actually use one (as opposed to just wearing a chest strap under my boobs for the fun of it). One of the books, Heart Monitor Training for the Compleat Idiot by John L. Parker, Jr. is now my bible.
The whole concept behind using a heart rate monitor in training is to truly measure your aerobic effort so that you run your easy days easy and hard days hard. The problem with trying to do this unaided is that most people simply do not know how much they need to slow down on their easy days and end up working harder on those days. When the true hard day comes, they already hit the "wall" sort of speak. In any case, the book explains a lot better than I am doing right now.
This is my fourth week into it. I have to say it's harder to do the easy days simply because I have to sometimes stop and walk to bring my heart rate down to below 70% of my max. heart rate. It's very frustrating to not even make a 10 min/mile pace on those days. But I am determined to stick with it and hope to see the results.
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