Three Days Before Race #1

My first race is in three days.  As of today, however, I still have not resolved my heart rate monitor issue.

If you read my last post, you know that the reading on my HRM was regularly spiking.  I thought that the culprit was either an expiring battery or some kind of interference from my new running jacket.  It was easy enough to put both of these theories to the test.  A fresh battery & running without my jacket still gave me conclusive evidence: something else was wrong with my equipment. 

Coach Benson, the author of the book I am using for training, has a section in his book describing various things that can cause the heart rate monitor to malfunction.  One of the things he mentions is that a loose chest strap can result in just such errant readings.  After reading this, I was sure that I had found the solution to my problem.  I tightened the strap, put on my heart rate monitor, and observed the readout as I sat and read on Saturday afternoon.  No spikes.  Problem solved, right? 

Of course not.  The next morning as I took to the road, things started off looking right (as they always do).  But after running for a while, my HRM reported my heart rate at 210 BPM.  I can get my heart rate pretty close to that and I know what it feels like.  No way was my heart beating that fast.  I was probably right around 150 BPM, a far cry from over 200.  The continuing errors on my device led me to do more research on possible problems.  As it turned out, my hunches were right in terms of my problem-solving efforts.  Weak battery & some types of clothing can indeed have such result.  But the other thing I found out is that a lot of people have had just such a problem -- that the chest strap (and indeed all Garmin chest straps, apparently) has a bad habit of showing heart rate spikes after about six months of use.

I’ve ordered a new chest strap and contacted Garmin customer support.  Hopefully they will replace the faulty one and I can have a spare strap going forward.  The heart rate monitor is too central to my training to go without.

On the other hand, the last week of running has been uniquely rewarding.  Since my heart rate monitor has shown itself to be an unreliable tool, I am willing to ignore whatever it tells me.  So, I’ve been running with fewer constraints.  Generally, my runs are keyed to a heart rate range, and I spend my whole run fighting to keep within the range.  If my run is supposed to be a 60% - 75% run, I spend the whole time at 75% - 76%.  I always want to run faster than my workout will allow.  Being able to ignore the beeping of my device has been quite liberating.  I still try to follow the spirit of the session -- i.e. in the 65% - 70% sessions, I know the whole point of the exercise is to hold back -- but now I’m holding back on my terms.

Unfortunately, I fear that this will delay my progress somewhat.  I’ve been running “how I want” for a couple years now with basically no progress.  The whole point in following Coach Benson’s model workout program is that it will allow me to develop as a runner.  Running slow is in unsatisfying in some ways.  However, there is satisfaction to be found in achieving a goal.  My goal is to run a marathon.  Lest I forget.  Also, I want to develop into a better runner.

This weekend is the first test.  It’s a little premature.  On Coach Benson’s schedule, the 5k doesn’t come until the end of week six, and I am only on week four at this point.  Also, I don’t really have an empirical benchmark to demonstrate development.  In any event, I’m psyched that, for the first time since I started this training: I get to run!  The faster, the better!  Race day!

My goal has been to do a 5k in 30 minutes.  I have a hunch that I might be able to do even better than that, though, so I’m setting up my splits so that my Garmin will be encouraging me to finish in 26 minutes.

It’ll be the first time that the Garmin will be telling me to speed up rather than slow down.

Tools for Knowing the Heart

I got a bit of a scare this morning.  After strapping on my heart rate monitor, I headed down the road to leave the neighborhood.  By the time I had gone a tenth of a mile, during my warm-up stage, my heart rate monitor read “80%.”  Now, I’ve been using this thing long enough to know that I was not running in any way at an intensity that would have read 80% any other day.  I was just warming up; if I had to guess, I think it would have read around 65% any other day.

What made this day unlike all other days?

There are three possible culprits in the wild reading on my heart rate monitor today.  First, today was the first time I ran with my new running jacket, a Patagonia Runshade 1/4 Zip.  It would be unfortunate if the jacket is interfering with my heart rate monitor, since I like the jacket a lot -- but this is a likely cause. My hope is that the error was due to a failing battery in the chest strap.  The battery is easy to replace and would require no further change of gear or routine.

The third and worst case scenario for the cause of the error is that I had the wrong resting heart rate programmed into my heart rate monitor.  The Garmin (HRM) wants to show zones as percentages of the differential between maximum heart rate and resting heart rate, while Coach Benson expresses all of his zones simply as percentages of maximum.  In my case, my maximum heart rate is 200 and my resting heart rate is 50.  If I put both of these numbers into my Garmin, it will tell me I’m at 70% when my heart rate is (((200 - 50) * 70%) + 50) = 155, while my training program would mean 70% as (200 * 70%) = 140.  To get my Garmin to read in Coach Benson’s terms, I set resting heart rate to “1.”  Therefore the differential is essentially the same as actual maximum heart rate.  I’m sure that I’ve set my device accordingly in the past.  But yesterday I noticed that the value for resting heart rate in the computer software related to my Garmin was set at 55 or something.  I changed it so that the charts would read the way I want them to.  But the question remains: Was my device also set to RHR = 55 over the past few weeks?  If so, I’ve been going too fast all along -- even as I’ve experienced my running as, at times, maddeningly slow.

Notice how I’m not concerned that my heart was different today than yesterday.  I am confident that there is, for some reason, an error in my tools or their use.  My heart is as good as it has ever been.

Thinking about this leads me to ponder the words of Jeremiah in scripture: “The days are coming, says the L-rd, when I shall establish a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah.  It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, a covenant I broke, though I was patient with them, says the L-rd.  For this is the covenant I shall establish with the Israelites after those days, says the L-rd: I shall set my law within them, writing it on their hearts; I shall be their G-d, and they will be my people.  No longer need they teach one another, neighbor or brother, to know the L-rd; all of them, high and low alike, will know me, says the L-rd, for I shall forgive their wrongdoing, and their sins I shall call to mind no more.”  The New Testament book of Hebrews explains that, indeed, the time of the new covenant has come -- that it took effect on the death of Jesus, ratified by his spilled blood.

The Christian understanding, then, is that we have knowledge of perfection written on our hearts.  Does this mean that we are to go wherever our hearts lead us?  I think not.  Though the perfect law of the L-rd is written on our hearts, I think there’s a lot of other stuff written there, too.  The very concept “follow your heart” can lead one down some very dark and clearly sinful paths very quickly.  Adultery.  Greed.  Idolatry.  These can all be seen as examples of the manifestation of following one’s heart.

When we want to know more about our physical heart, we use tools.  From a stethoscope, to a heart rate monitor, to an EKG, tools can help us better understand how our hearts are functioning.  Still, any of these have their limitations.  I bought a med school stethoscope for my two-year-old son so that he can hear his heart beating.  But if I just hand it to him, the chances are slim that he will make good use of it.  Even putting the eartips in his ears & the diaphragm in his hand, he is unable to be able to use the stethoscope correctly.  So, too, if you were to wheel a state-of-the-art electrocardiograph up to my desk, I would be unlikely to be able to learn much about my heart with it.  Just as Josiah would need some help to use the stethoscope to hear his heart, I would need instruction to make any use of the electrocardiograph.  We need both good tools and knowledge on how to use those tools if we want to be able to listen to our hearts.  But as I learned this morning, even a good tool that I know how to use can let me down.

What we need is a perfect tool and complete understanding of its use.

To know our spiritual hearts, I think that we do indeed have a perfect tool in The Bible.  But do we have complete understanding of its use?  The scripture I quoted above says, “No longer need they teach one another, neighbor or brother, to know the L-rd.”  How do we learn how to make the best use of our tools, then?  Do we really need no assistance in understanding The Bible?  Jeremiah is prophesying that we, in our time, have the perfect law written on our hearts.  My understanding is that The Bible is the perfect tool.  So, does this mean that what we have is sufficient for a total understanding of G-d’s perfect way?

Though I will change the battery on my chest strap today, I probably won’t run with my jacket on tomorrow.  So tomorrow I should know whether the worst-case scenario -- that my resting heart rate has been set incorrectly -- was to blame for the peculiar HRM readings today.  It’ll be Sunday or Monday before I will know whether simply changing the battery has fixed my problem.  If it works well tomorrow with a new battery & no jacket but then fails on Sunday, then presumably the jacket is to blame.  Here’s hoping that a $2 battery is the worst of my problems!

Favorite tool: Vibram FiveFingers

A few tools have proven to be particularly useful in my running life.  Perhaps another time I will discuss the role my treadmill played in changing my exercise routines, and I will probably repeatedly give props to my heart rate monitor and how that tool has allowed me to take my running to a level I had not previously anticipated.  But today, I’d like to discuss my favorite tool that has transformed my running: Vibram FiveFingers shoes.

In September 2009, the radio show All Things Considered did a piece on the emerging trend of barefoot running and the shoes that were becoming popular in response.  It didn’t strike me as something that I needed to go out to act upon right away, but I guess I filed the information away somewhere for later use.  The next July, as I was accumulating supplies for a mission trip to Mexico that I was anticipating, I decided that I needed to procure a pair of shower shoes.  Seizing the opportunity, I decided to take advantage of my “need” and acquire for myself a pair of VFFs to use in Mexico as my bathroom shoes. 

Allow me to inform you: VFFs make poor shower shoes.  Especially when you first get them, they are not easy to put on.  Also, though they do dry out, it is not quickly enough so that, after showering in them at the end of the day, you would want to put them on your feet to run to the baño in the middle of the night.  I ended up grifting my tent-partners’ shoes for those starry jaunts across the camp. 

Soon after Mexico, I brought my VFF KSOs (“keep stuff out,” a model that covers the top of the foot) to Destin to be my beach running shoe.  Again, they fell short of my expected use.  Once they became wet, they were very irritating to my feet.  By the time I totally overdid my beach run in Destin, I was carrying my VFFs, preferring instead to run through the stinking algae that lined the beaches at that time in my bare feet.  Strike two for the VFFs.

At some point soon thereafter, however, I started using VFFs on my treadmill.  I really liked the feel of the run that they offered.  VFFs let you feel connected to your running surface in a way that nothing else can.  Also, it was quickly apparent, they changed my gait.  I’m not an experienced runner, but the extent to which I was running differently was noticeable.  Now that I know more about the mechanics of what I’m doing, I know that running in VFFs forces you to run closer to the front of your foot and shorten your stride.  Also, in isolating each toe, you allow them to participate differently in your stride.  This significantly increases agility.

Vibrams became my daily running shoe.  But it wasn’t until a couple of months ago that I began to understand the full benefit conferred by these shoes.  After the birth of my daughter, I switched my running time from midday at my lunch break to first thing in the morning.  This change allowed me to get to work early and regularly take afternoons off to spend with family.  This is also when I started using my heart rate monitor and running on streets instead of a treadmill.  As time rolled on and days grew shorter, I found myself running in pitch dark most mornings.  And, while the VFFs allow me to feel connected to the road, they also connected me to rocks and burrs and whatever else was on the street that I was unable to see in the dark.  It seemed to me that a conventional running shoe would address this problem. 

~~

Let me give a little background at this point.  I changed much about my life in 2002 and 2003.  It started when I broke up with a long-time girlfriend.  Seeking a personal renaissance, I joined a gym and started exercising daily.  At that time I was addicted to prescription stimulants and was a rather emaciated figure, weighing in at maybe 120 pounds at just over 5’9”.  I moved to South Carolina, re-introduced myself to G-d, broke my drug addiction, and I did what I could to maintain a decent exercise schedule.  In a sea of gym equipment, I found myself gravitating to the treadmill.  I never asked anyone how best to make use of the thing -- just hopped on, hit the buttons that seemed good, and got going.  For several years, this entailed speed walking at steep variable inclines.  I enjoyed the workouts.  It had been many years since I had exercised, and I relished the difficulty of the process.  Self-discipline has long been one of my strong motivating drives, and at that point in my life, I directed my self-discipline toward exercise.

But, as I have said, I was in the dark on what I was doing.  My only advice came from the treadmill itself and its programs.  Within a year, I was experiencing knee pain more or less constantly.  (My years of sitting in full lotus position, which was where I had directed my self-discipline in the previous decade, were certainly of no help in this matter.)  I went to an orthopedist for consultation.  He diagnosed me with medial synovial plica irritation, if memory serves me right, and suggested that arthroscopic surgery would be the best way to treat the pain.  I was uninsured at the time, so the arthroscopic surgery was out of the question.  I decided that I could bear the pain -- for a while, anyways.

Eventually, I began to change my workouts so that I wasn’t on such a steep incline.  This helped my knees, but significantly lowered the intensity of my workouts.  Over the next several years, I experimented with different types of workout to keep intensity high while not beating up my knees.

When I got my VFFs, something inside me said, “game on!”  I greatly increased the intensity of my running. 

~~

My understanding is that it takes some time to adjust to any new pair of running shoes.  When I got my conventional running shoes (Saucony Progrid Kinvara), I took it very easy on the roads for a couple of weeks.  Then I turned it up a bit.  That week I found myself walking differently.  I also noticed that when I wanted to stand still, I looked to find a position that would allow me to keep my knees bent rather than locking them straight.  After a couple of days of this, it started to become clear that what I was feeling was quite familiar.  Yes, this was very similar to the pain that I used to live with, day in, day out.  I had entirely forgotten about knee problems.  I had been running long, hard, hilly runs for months, and had never given a single thought to my knees.  Now that I was adjusting to a conventional shoe, the old pain was back and very real.  It seems that there is something of a slingshot effect on joints when you have padding in shoes.  The impact itself is initially lessened, but on return, it compresses the joint more than it would if you didn’t pad the impact to begin with.  The padding of the conventional shoe was making my knees work harder than the padding-free VFFs would.

Once I began to put two and two together, I began to explore my other “barefoot shoe” options.  As it turns out, Vibram makes a range of shoes, some of which are designed for specific activities.  On reading reviews of the Vibram FiveFingers Bikila, it seemed like it might be right for me.  Indeed, my Bikilas rock my world.  I can’t speak highly enough about how Bikilas have opened up my running options.  I got them in time for my second beach trip of the summer, and did my best to put them to the test.  I ran two 10k, two 5k, and a 20k run that week.  And really, I haven’t thought about my knees on those runs until now.

Bravo, Vibram!   Three cheers for making a product that can transform a life!

Running behind Danny

Just a couple quick thoughts today.

First, today was my first “C” run.  On my training schedule, “A” runs require staying in the heart range of 65-70% of maximum, “B” runs (the long Saturday runs) allow a range of 60-75% of maximum, and “C” runs are 75-80% of maximum heart rate.  So today was the first time I was really allowed to run.  How wonderful it felt!  It’s been weeks since I have been allowed to run up to 80%.  Okay, it’s true: I do cheat sometimes during my cool-down period.  After all, I end my runs by going up a big hill which leads to my neighborhood -- so it’s hard to keep my heart rate down without going backwards.  But today I was able to run a full 5 kilometers.  Well, 5k including warm-up and cool-down.  Anyway, I got to run, and I was very happy.  Next week, I get my first “D” run, which is seven-minute intervals up to 85% max heart rate. 

Today was a rainy morning.   It won’t be long before early morning rain might change the course of my day.  But for now, it was quite welcome.

What occurred to me today was how our church’s pulpit minister, Danny, is at least partly responsible for my decision to run a marathon & write this blog.  Danny decided to do a year of nine different forty-day fasts.  For example, he started with a 40-day food fast, just finished 40 days without speaking, and just began a 40-day fast from walking (getting around in a wheelchair, I imagine).  And he is blogging the experience on this very site: http://yearoffasting.blogspot.com.

It’s pretty clear how his influence would have led me to write this blog.  He’s the only active (unpaid) blogger that I know.  But more so, I think, has been the influence of his decision to undertake these austerities.  It seems to me that a number of us at Clemson Church of Christ are setting bigger personal goals for ourselves.  I have to think that some of this comes from his impact.  My buddy Mike from church has decided to run the Columbia SC marathon as well; I would say “with me,” but he’s ten years younger than me, has been in training longer than me now, and is generally more athletic than I am.  So the only sense in which I’ll be running with him is that he & I are both running the same race and, perhaps, I may be able to draw some strength from the spiritual kinship of that.  But I’m sure he’ll be done an hour and a half before I will.

Anyway, I think more of us in the congregation are asking more of ourselves, and I credit Danny with his leadership role.  It’s been great the many ways we have been able to participate in his fasts: from reading his blog, to hosting him for a weekend when he was fasting from sight, to the vicarious participation that we’ve been afforded seeing his struggles.  It is good to move, to compel oneself, to go beyond one’s comfort zone.  It’s great to have comfort, but most of the rewards in life come from pushing.

From the labor that brings forth a baby to the struggles of running a marathon, it is good to push.

Slower, slower

Following my marathon training program is quite frustrating.

It’s not that it’s pushing me too hard.  Quite to the contrary -- it seems to me like I am not doing nearly enough.  After all, I’m running, first and foremost, because I want to RUN.  Proceeding as slowly as Coach Benson (the author of Heart Rate Training) is suggesting just feels too easy.  He warns about this a few times in the book.  As easy as it seems, he assures, I am building tissues that will, in its course, allow me to run 26.2 miles.  Still, it’s hard to have the discipline to do . . . so little.

Enter: Trust.

The reason to follow Coach Benson’s training program is that I have given myself over to trust in him.  He’s coached many people over many years, and he has earned his credibility.  Heart Rate Training has a near-perfect four-point-eight-out-of-five-star rating on Amazon.  The book is collaboration with Dr. Declan Connolly, an exercise physiologist who has published more than 300 articles in scientific journals and has served as a consultant to professional and Olympic teams.  So, while my body tells me it can handle much more, I must override my instinct to run faster, longer, and harder in the short-term with a long-term goal in mind.  I must trust those with more experience than me.

Surely, there is no great leap here to the religious life.  For me, certainly, the critical moment in my religious growth was when I decided to trust and obey scripture.  In my thirtieth year, I began to read scripture as I had not before.  I started in the most natural place to begin a serious read: in the beginning.  By the middle of Exodus, I was fully aware that G-d was speaking not just to a people remote in time & place from me; his words, his Word, was intended for me.  Many rules are stated & repeated, but none so frequently as “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy” (or some variation thereupon).  It seemed unmistakable what G-d was asking of me: “Honor me by obeying me.  Hallow the day that I have hallowed.”  And I did.  I read and obeyed.

In retrospect, I remember it almost like a teenager who has been asked to “go steady.”  It was the most important decision of my life.  “Yes, L-rd -- I’ll go steady with you.”

The fruits of my trust have been manifold.  My life has been nothing but a series of rewards since that time.  Dare I say that I have had no difficulties since then?  In a very real sense, this has indeed been the case.  I have had moments of sorrow and fear, but I am never far from the joy of walking with G-d. 

Though, indeed, sometimes I have been tempted to run.  Sometimes I feel like I want to do so much more.  If walking with G-d is so great, wouldn’t it be even better to be a missionary or a pastor or something?  Walking is great; running must be better!

My running life can inform my religious life.  From my walk with G-d, I have learned that it is wise to trust an experienced coach.  From a running coach, I can learn that sometimes it is in my long-term interest -- in the very interest of developing speed -- that I take things a bit slower than theoretically possible.

On today’s marathon training schedule, one word: “Off.”

On Schedule

As of today, I am officially on schedule.  That is to say, my training schedule is a 24-week course with the marathon falling at the end of week 23.  I guess week 24 is just to wind down from the marathon.  So, today was my first day on my formal program.

And, as when I began my more disciplined training about a month ago, it meant as shorter, lighter run than I would have ever imagined beneficial.  Today’s was a 30-minute run that included a 5-minute warm-up and a 10-minute cool-down.  So, running for 15 minutes.  And by running, I mean maintaining a heart rate between 65% and 70% of maximum heart rate.  I’m at 40% stumbling out of bed in the morning, and my first cup of coffee gets me easily to 50% of maximum.  So staying between 65% and 70% -- especially in hilly Greenville -- sometimes means shuffling my feet to a tempo similar to that of a run. 

No, I’m not doing it wrong.  The author of the book & program from which I’m working, Heart Rate Training, says one should be able to talk in “Faulkner sentences” at this level of work -- meaning, essentially, totally unlabored breathing.  Yep, that’s pretty much where I am.

The thing I’ve noticed, quite to my amazement, is that ever since I changed my runs from high intensity to low intensity, I have been losing weight quite rapidly.  I certainly haven’t changed my eating in any meaningful way.  I understand it has something to do with fast-twitch and slow-twitch muscles using different stores for energy.  Now I see why aerobics are so popular…