Beardys running log - Ct5k

[Polar Bear]

Ha!  The weather forecast was out and I got a good dousing but as it's relatively warm the only issue was rain-soaked and steamed up shades.  Yes, I need my eyewear even on a grey day.

I added an extra K on the end just to shorten the cool down walk so as to get less of a soaking.  It seemed rational to me at the time but I'm not sure that it really made any difference.

It's so awesome to just be able to add another K when I think back to January and struggling to run 200m.  And when I think back to July and August when I was struggling and finding myself not completing my runs.  Feeling a bit smug. 
 
I now have rain dripping from my hair down the back of my neck.  🤨  😉

[Auntie Helen]

How are you finding intervals?

I do 1 minute run, 3 minute jog x 5. So 20 minutes in total with a five minute warm up and warm down each end, so half an hour in total.

You would think it might be easier than jogging for 30 minutes but it’s a lot harder. My reason for intervals is to try to increase my average speed but I suspect that won’t really happen. I think I will always be an eight minute per kilometre lady. But that’s just how I am with cycling – only one speed but I can do it for a long time.

It is quite nice to do a shorter run than the 30 minutes but I am more tired by the end of it and I get very sweaty. Plus my heart rate averages around 190 which is not bad for someone almost 50 years old but means, because of my resting heart rate of 59, that my Vo2 Max that my watch gives me is appalling - 23.7 at the moment.

I don’t know if I will keep on running long-term but at the moment it’s working well because it doesn’t take much time and where I live is ideal. I would not have dreamed of trying it without reading this thread so thank you Beardy and the others.

[Polar Bear]

I have read plenty which claims that regular intervals increase your base speed and your ability to push when required.  If you can keep up the interval work I would be surprised if you didn't make gains.  Indeed, I have vague plans to start interval work in February once I have completed my Quest to Half Maratbon plan.

VO2 readings on watches are very inefficient.  Mine fluctuates by quite a few points so I don't really pay it any attention other than for amusement, much the same as my "productivity" status.

I can see my "progress" in terms of distance, frequency and average speed over time and I have learned through disappointment to expect peaks and troughs as well as good sessions and apparently poor sessions.  The most important thing though in my mind is actually getting out and doing something: that alone feels rewarding enough.

[Auntie Helen]

I will keep going with the intervals just to give me variety - it will take a while to really see anything I think, we shall see.

My VO2 Max used to be 29.8 (the bottom end of the 'good' band) and then when Apple Watch did the latest WatchOS Update it dived to 22-23 (which is in the middle of the 'poor' band). Lots of other people have had large drops too. I keep hoping it will improve but no. However, I think I must be reasonably healthy as I walk every day, cycle long distances, jog for 30 minutes. So I guess the original reading, which was similar to what my Garmin Vivoactive 3 offered, was more correct for me.

I am enjoying looking at the splits of my intervals in Strava to see how things are going - I seem fairly consistent in my running and jogging speed, they are both just pretty slow!

[mrcharly-YHT]

Managed my lunchtime jog today. Had to leave phone at home so didn't have anything to give me my pace (and missed the music).

Consequence was a slowish 5km that felt tiring.

Oh how much fitness I've lost!

[Beardy]

Auntie Helen, there’s a reason that PB having named his Garmin the Thief of Joy it was adapted to ToJ and subsequently adopted by the thread as the common nomenclature for all sports watches. Although they seem to be good at tracking our routes, times and speeds, they seem less competent when relying on advanced sensors or fancy algorithms. Not that I’d be without mine now a days. 

mrcharly, any run is a good run and 5k in the bag is an excellent outcome. 

[sojournermike]

Ah, that’s what ToJ means. Indeed, training status is a bit of a lagging indicator and can make you miserable if you’re not careful. Training load can be helpful, but everything goes to ratchet when you have a forerunner 935 and an edge 530 - cause physio trueup doesn’t. So I wind up with two different training loads based on different (but possibly not exclusive) sets of activities and different algorithms.

Bizarrely, in spite of all this they both give me the same vo2max estimate for running or cycling. That’s not unreasonable after a couple of months of limited running and bike replacement activity.

AuntieH - your intervals will help. Do them hard/briskly and only once per week.

[perpetual dan]

Ah, that’s what ToJ means.

Same! I've been trying to read that as "Tour of Jeff" but it didn't really fit how people were using it. 

[Polar Bear]

I first heard the expression, "comparison is the thief of joy" from The Running Channel on youtube.  I borrowed the "Thief of Joy" element not long after I made an emergency purchase during lockdown I of a Garmin Fenix 6.  Much of the information it was giving me was erratic and often demotivating. 

I ended up turning most metrics off but Garmin chose to make my life miserable again recently with a new introduced feature during a firmware update which took quite some effort to disable.

To get the features you want with tech you have to take so much that you really don't want or need.  I will be very very careful when selecting my next "wearable".

[sojournermike]

I first heard the expression, "comparison is the thief of joy" from The Running Channel on youtube.  I borrowed the "Thief of Joy" element not long after I made an emergency purchase during lockdown I of a Garmin Fenix 6.  Much of the information it was giving me was erratic and often demotivating. 

I ended up turning most metrics off but Garmin chose to make my life miserable again recently with a new introduced feature during a firmware update which took quite some effort to disable.

To get the features you want with tech you have to take so much that you really don't want or need.  I will be very very careful when selecting my next "wearable".

This is true. It’s deliberate of course - I would like:

- physio trueup to work
- fr935 like battery life
- altimeter to work if present on watch

That would mean replacing the 935 with a new device (945 or soon 955). Even the physio trueup may not work...

[Polar Bear]

Battery life on the Fenix 6 Pro is nothing like claimed but then I do wear the watch 24/7 so perhaps I should not expect more than 4 days out of it.   I'm looking to a strategy of stopping recording my health data 24/7 but the act of taking it off for that first night is proving incredibly difficult.

I did a 12k recce walk this afternoon in preparation for a 10k run on Friday.  I needed to check the pavements, kerbs and obstructions status of the chosen route.  Happy to say that it should be fine though the long uphill section at about 6k will be a bit of a challenge.  Tomorrow's run is my now midweek lap of Draycote Water.   I might just have got to the position of a different safe route for each of my three weekly runs and an offload route for when I feel like a bit of trail.  I am quite pleased about this.

[Beardy]

That seems strange PB, I’m getting a week out of my Fenix 6 even with three 1hr runs and it only takes 3 hrs or so to fully charge. It’s also connected permanently via Bluetooth to my phone. I don’t listen to music on it through.

I hope the new route works out ok.

[Polar Bear]

I suspect it's partly because just about everything remains on.  I could spend time turning things off and on all the time but it's inconvenient purely because of the difficulties I have seeing the menu options.  Now, if I could set things in Garmin Connect or it could be set up for a simple exercising / not exercising configuration which automatically flipped then I suspect battery use would dramatically reduce.

[sojournermike]

My 935 easily manages over a week with a few runs or more like 2 with my current once per week status. I keep it on pretty much all the time and record data continuously - although it has fewer sensors than the Fenix - no spO2

Mike

[Beardy]

The question at the forefront of everyone’s* mind this morning is how long will it take beardy to get of his fat arse and get out there?

No, I don’t understand either why when I have decided I would like to go for a run it takes so much effort to actually get out of the door.


*well, mine at least.

[Polar Bear]

Race ya!

I'm off for a bus shortly then a 7.6km loop of Draycote Reservoir.  I expect to start running at about 10:20, public transport notwithstanding ...

[chrisbainbridge]

The real battery killer is the pulse oximetry.  Turning that off will probably double your battery life.  I get 5 days at least out of mine

[Polar Bear]

Run screwed.  Bus got to Dunchurch and went the wrong way.  Turns out that the road is closed for reasons not yet known.  Walk home and a rejig of my week.   

[mrcharly-YHT]

No, I don’t understand either why when I have decided I would like to go for a run it takes so much effort to actually get out of the door.

I don't understand why, once I've changed into running gear, I have to go for a crap. Doesn't matter that I filled the toilet bowl 15min ago. Nope, this is the surge that cannot be denied.

In other news, I hauled my unfit arse out of the door this morning, as a substitute for a lunchtime run (heading to the tooth-torturer at lunchtime).

[Beardy]

I’m sorry to hear that PB, especially after you successfully goaded me to go out (thank you )

7.48k in 60 mins. I invited uncle Jeff to join me earlier than usual by setting off at a faster pace with the intention of increasing my anaerobic loading. It didn’t really work because I ended up being proportionally slower in the later stages of the route. I can’t get away from the fact that if I want to increase my overall,pace I’m going to have to do intervals.

Running across the kale field gave me very soggy toes again, and the path is very muddy there as well. I’ll have to consider a different route, or a variation to avoid that part, I thing because it’s most unpleasant.
Feeling satisfied though.

[Polar Bear]

Well done Beardy.  You won this one. Grrrrr!

My revised plan for this week is to run the 10km which was scheduled for Friday tomorrow and take that as a slightly reduced week.  My 7 became an 8 on Monday so it's not all bad.

In other news:  I have turned off Pulse Ox or whatever it is called on the ToJ to see if I can get more than 5 days from a charge.  The numbers always dwell in the mid to high nineties and I'm not convinced of the accuracy from what I have read elsewhere anyway.

[Polar Bear]

Gosh.  Just turning that off has doubled estimated runtime.  It can stay off.

[Greenbank]

I'll keep PulseOx monitoring on. The PulseOx sensor in the 945 (and Fenix) is a dual wavelength sensor and it's always been in agreement (to within 1% or so) of the fingertip PulseOx sensor I have. The single wavelength sensors aren't anywhere near as accurate (and there are incorrect reports out there claiming the Garmin sensor is a single wavelength sensor).

I wear my watch pretty much 24/7, the only times I take it off are:-
* copying off the data files once every few days (to upload to strava and just as a backup)
* getting myself clean (e.g. having a bath or shower)

As long as I remember to put it on to charge when I have a bath or a shower I never have a problem with the battery running low.

[sojournermike]

I'll keep PulseOx monitoring on. The PulseOx sensor in the 945 (and Fenix) is a dual wavelength sensor and it's always been in agreement (to within 1% or so) of the fingertip PulseOx sensor I have. The single wavelength sensors aren't anywhere near as accurate (and there are incorrect reports out there claiming the Garmin sensor is a single wavelength sensor).

I wear my watch pretty much 24/7, the only times I take it off are:-
* copying off the data files once every few days (to upload to strava and just as a backup)
* getting myself clean (e.g. having a bath or shower)

As long as I remember to put it on to charge when I have a bath or a shower I never have a problem with the battery running low.

You soft and indulgent types - when I grew up we were always taught that we should have a bath once a week whether we needed it or not*. That’s why the watch runs low.



*Interestingly, on the bathing front, William Dalrymples rather wonderful book ‘From the Holy Mountain’ discusses a medieval orthodox bishop who was considered appallingly self-indulgent as he took to his bath daily and monks who in or to avoid any suggestion of indulgence or impropriety never took to their baths at all.

Now, back to normal service...

[Beardy]

Has no one been out today? It’s been another fine day here, and I was tempted to go out in spite of my shoes still being wet. Unfortunately I had chores and errands so decided to wait until tomorrow. I hope the weather holds