No sign of the Perseid Meteor Shower but my running is improving!

Last night when it was well and truely dark five of us bundled in to a car and drove to a remote rural spot in Suffolk and then hopped out of the vehicle and stood by the roadside.

Well one of us stayed in the car as they claimed it was cold. The occasional car passed by with full beam lights and slowed as they passed us. Although we couldn't see the drivers you could tell they were thinking what are 4 people doing stood beside a car in the dark!

The driver had had the bright idea to see if we could find a high spot in Suffolk away from nearby towns and villages so as to get the best possible view of the Perseid Meteor Shower. We stood and stared in all directions for a good hour and to be honest we did see 2-3 shooting stars but were unclear whether this was the Perseid or not.

According to the BBC  the Perseid meteor shower is caused by debris from the comet Swift-Tuttle. Every 133 years, the huge comet swings through the inner part of our Solar System and leaves behind a trail of dust and gravel.When Earth passes through the debris, specks hit our atmosphere at 140,000mph and disintegrate in flashes of light.

It was a little too cloudy to see much and so we left our corner of Suffolk and returned home still having enjoyed a bit of star gazing. What was also amazing was the number of planes on a regular flight path across the skies. There was a constant stream of planes sometimes stacked in the sky above each other .

Wednesday I ran 2.5 miles in a comfortable two paced effort. Firstly walking for 5 minutes and then a steady jog for 20 before walking last 5 minutes. I am following a Micoach training plan to get me fit by using the heart rate monitor (hrm)as my key driver rather than pace per mile.  I have never really used a hrm before and am learning this takes a little practice to make the sensors on the back of the strap to work. Frustratingly on this run they didn't work - not absolutely sure why but probably down to the need to moisten the sensors with warm water before the run. I did wet them but with cold water and I didn't centre the HRM in the centre of the chest like you are supposed to do.

This morning I did a 20 minute effort but I again struggled with the HRM. Perhaps it is too loose and needs to be tighter. Hopefully I will crack this to make the HRM work otherwise for me I will return to the Garmin.  Todays run was the best yet as I followed the advice of my android lady friend coach. A warm up of 5 minutes was followed by a run of ten minutes  in the yellow zone which is a fairly decent paced run . What I didn't notice was any foot pain today so I am realy pleased with this and hope it continues. A warm down jog and my 20 minutes was complete.

Progress is being made finally!

Five Mile Easy Run using the Adidas Micoach

Ever heard of the Adidas Micoach? Well I was the lucky winner of an instant prize over on the Sennheiser/Adidas 5forsports web site. All I had to do was enter my 5 fav running songs and I won an Adidas Micoach which retails at £108 or $172 dollars at Prodirectrunning.com and at Wiggle .  So price wise and as a product it is competing with the older 205/305 versions of the Garmin Forerunner - tough competition as these are tried and trusted products.

When I have used the Adidas micoach for a week or two I will do a review and give my honest opinion.  In brief what you get for your money is a heart rate monitor, a stride sensor and a coaching device called a mi coach pacer. However I can see there is loads of performance stats to synch back to your computer after a run but more on this another time.

Initially I am using the pacer to set my self an easy programme to return to fitness after a long injury lay off when I packed on the weight. You have a choice with the mi coach pacer to run according to pace or by heart rate. I have never really used a heart rate monitor before but have decided to give this a go.

At lunch time today I ventured out for a gentle and slow five mile run. Conditions were very good warm with plenty of mid day sunshine. The Adidas Micoach links to your IPOD or MP3 player so you can listen to music or a podcast on the run but as and when there are updates your personal coach will overide the music and give you an update on a number of statistics that you can set.  There was a choice of coaching voices either male or female and I chose the later.Not sure what that says about me!

I had set the pacer to give me a half an hour coaching session. The session comprised of a 5 minute slow warm up in a heart rate zone called blue 113 to 128 bpm , followed by 20 minutes in the green zone 129 to 146 bpm before a warm down of five minutes in the blue zone.

During the run if I was running to fast or needed to speed up the coach would ask me to slow down. This was enjoyable and helpful and I found that during the half an hour there were 5-6 times when I needed to slow down. I can immeadiately see this is the big plus/selling  point with this gadget after all what would you have to pay to have a personal coach? I can see that once I have logged a number of runs the coach is going to be more and more of a personal coach as my previous performance , speed and heart rate is measured so as to base future runs by.

Did I keep to the pacer bpm zones? Not very well in fact for only 40% of the time. I think this was mainly due to my carrying on running after the half an hour session for another 20 minutes at a higher pace.

Interestingly the Micoach stride sensor over the distance of 5 miles registered the same distance as the Garmin forerunner which I also wore as a test to make a comparision. I was surprised by this but if the stride sensor is as accurate or nearly as as accurate as a GPS then this will remove a big obstacle in my mind.

Todays run was a slow one and I can still feel my heel pain , hope I am not coming back too soon. Time will tell. The achievement today was running 5 miles - not far but it felt a long way today. I just hope there is no after reaction in my heel.

More on the Adidas Micoach in a wek or so.

Five Mile Easy Run

After a late night at the football on Tuesday I was feeling wiped out and didn't run on the Wednesday either. So I was looking forward to a run as I set out this evening.

I was in two minds whether to switch my schedule around and do the 10 miler or the shorter 5 miles. However my mind was made up for me as my battery on my Forerunner 205 ran out of juice. Consequently I had a releaxed easy 5 miler over a regular route.

Along Cullum Rd, up to the Ramada Hotal and back to Newmarket Road in Bury St Edmunds .

Fornham Suffolk Circular Run

8.15pm 7.1 miles in 58 mins 15 seconds
Week to date mileage 27 miles
Month to date mileage 71
Average weekly rate 30.3 miles
Average monthly rate 132
Year to date 1269
Lifetime 10862

I am persisting with the running despite the injury. I am keen to re measure all the course I usually run to see how accurate my guesses have been on the distance now I have my garmin Forerunner 205 device.

On this course I wasn't far out it being 7.1 miles according to the watch compared to 7.2 on Mapmyrun and my original guess of 7.5 miles.

1. 2007 4th Aug 59.20
   
2. 2007 17th June 57.48
   
3. 2007 2nd June 59.00
4. 2007 28th May 57.19
5. 2007 12th May 58.29
6. 2007 18th March 57.54
7. 2007 12th March 56.40
8. 2007 10th March 59.25
9. 2007 1st Jan 58.26
10. 2006 23rd Dec 57.59
11. 2006 16th Dec 58.48
12. 2006 16th Nov 59.56
13. 2006 26th Aug 58.01
14. 2006 6th Aug 57.20
    
15. 2006 26th July 57.29
16. 09.07.06 58.44
17. 24.06.06 57.24
18. 03.06.06 59.17
19. 13.05.06 58.20
20. 6.05.06 57.03
21. 25.04.06 57.02
22. 18.05.06 56.51
23. 11.02.06 59.25
24. 14.01.06 1.0.05
25. 17.12.05 59.29
26. 29.10.05 59.52
27. 03.10.05 1.0.19
28. 11.09.05 1.0.14
29. 28.08.05 57.42
30. 19.08.05 59.36
31. 22.07.05 58.24
32. 10.07.05 59.48
33. 01.07.05 59.42
34. 23.06.05 1.4.0
35. 18.06.05 1.2.18
36. 29.05.05 1.0.26
37. 23.05.05 59.38
38. 5.4.05 1.2.41
39. 1.4.05 1.0.26
40. 19.3.05 59.0
41. 12.3.05 1.0.43
42. 5.3.05 1.2.16
43. 26.2.05 1.2.16
44. 6.2.05 1.1.23
45. 28.1.05 1.1.2.
46. 16.1.05 1.1.14
47. 8.1.05 1.3.19
48. 29.12.04 1.0.11
49. 24.12.04 1.1.26
50. 20.12.04 1.1.31
51. 3.12.04 1.1.13
52. 30.11.04 1.1.18
53. 11.11.04 1.0.32
54. 2.10.04 1.0.40
55. 24.09.04 59.50
    
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    Now playing: Dandy Livingstone - Rudy a Message to You
    via FoxyTunes
    

West Suffolk Athletics Track Bury St Edmunds Suffolk

6.15pm 7.64 miles in 54 mins 52 seconds
Week to date mileage 12 miles
Month to date mileage 57
Average weekly rate 30.3 miles
Average monthly rate 132
Year to date 1254
Lifetime 10847

Another visit to the west Suffolk Athletics track. Whilst my cold is much better tonight I felt a strain in my leg running from the lower stomach , groin and back/side of the leg. Basically it feels like I have been kicked in the balls and there is a slight pull when I run.

I ran the session hoping it might pass but it didn't and was in the mind as I ran.

I also finally got one of those Garmin Forerunner 205 devices but apart from wearing it haven't really been able to think much about it as my focus is on the possible injury. I bought it from a website called blokesstuff.com for £98 which is the cheapest I could find in the UK and they delivered next day free of charge.

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Now playing: Patti Smith - Peaceable Kingdom
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