Today’s long run statistics

Resting heart rate 48 bpm

Weight 71 kg

Mood

Exercise energy consumed 1052 kcal (10 mins bike, 1hr 23 mins “easy” run, est distance 13.1km)

It was a red letter day Friday because Polar delivered their new RS800sd Heart Rate Monitor to test and review. It is a fabulous-looking device and with accompanying foot pod a whole lot lighter than my “old” S625x. I’m not big on gadgets and new toys, but the inner male is coming out in me on this one. Today it had its first outing. I will still need to calibrate the cadence pod, which measures and can evaluate the quality of my running stride. That should help with efficiency, as Polar indicate even someone as fit as Lance Armstrong appeared to have been overstriding during his New York Marathon attempt last November.

Today was a shortish steady run.

Resting Heart Rate 48

Weight 71.5 kg

Mood

Exercise energy consumed 520 kcal (10 mins bike, 35 mins steady run)

In terms of recovery, the birth of a child must rank among the biggest of body traumas requiring adequate rest. It was reported this week that Paula Radcliffe has already resumed running just over two weeks since the birth of her first child.

This might not be so bad, but in continuing the theme of a bias to overtrain and under-recover, this article notes the experience of 1987 10,000m World Champion and serial marathon winner Ingrid Kristensen, from whom Paula reportedly sought advice:-

“Speaking earlier this year, Kristiansen admitted that she had done too much, too soon. She added: ‘I think Paula can come back in really good shape for the Beijing Olympics but she has to be patient. I did a little bit too much.’”

My own recovery seems to be going just fine. A virus is not a baby, after all. I ran intervals today, for the first time pushing the pace element to one-minute. I did this four times, then a four minute break, then another four times. As for recovery between intervals, instead of measuring by time, which I have done in the past, I followed the Bath University Human Performance Centre advice and waited until my heart rate had fallen to the recovery zone. Interestingly, the first several recoveries took a full minute, but thereafter the recovery rate improved to about 40-50 seconds.

Having pushed my heart-rate up to over 170 bpm, albeit briefly several times, it has left me tired, although with a sense of neurological adaptation. The post-run recovery feels quite different, more uplifting than a normal run.

Resting Heart Rate 46

Weight 71 kg

Mood

Exercise Energy Consumed 575 kcal (35 mins interval/fartlek run, 10 mins bike)

Bath University sports scientist and physicist Ken Bray noted recently in a talk about penalty shootouts that in the 2006 World Cup Owen Hargeaves was notable not just for being the only England player to score from the spot in the quarter- final shootout against Portugal. He also maintains that Hargreaves kick was the only properly taken kick among the England attempts.

Bray attributed this to Hargreaves playing for a German club (Bayern Munich) where such things are practiced. Bray says while penalty shootouts appear to many fans to be a lottery, they should in fact be a pure skill-based exercise. Given their predominance as a means to settling tied international tournaments, only by practice can teams hope to avoid chance outcomes and win.

There has been a widespread belief among many pundits in the UK that a professional footballer should not need to practice penalties. Bray argues, based on time of goalie reaction and various risk factors, it is best to aim for a slightly elevated kick wide to the right or left of the goalkeeper. It should take not much effort to perfect such a kick, but aiming in this zone removes the chance of goalie interception. The Germans, and Hargreaves, practice this. The rest of the England team, and some others don’t, leading to randomness. The Times, in an article today quotes England coach McClaren describing Hargreaves thus:-

“We need him,” McClaren said. “I always remember the first time he played in a World Cup warm-up match [in 2002] and Owen wanted me after the game to get the video out and go through it with him. That was very unusual. Most players you have to drag in. I thought, ‘This is a different breed, a different type of player here, a different mentality.’”

Continue reading ‘Hargreaves’ studiousness “not football”?’

Interesting research from London’s Portland Hospital reported yesterday by the BBC, indicates that some women are more vulnerable to ligament injury as part of their menstrual cycle:-

“Midway through the cycle, the level of the female sex hormone oestrogen, which gives strength to muscles and ligaments, drops dramatically, resulting in sudden weakness.”

There must be myriad under-researched possibilities such as these that mitigate against a work-based training programme. The question would be: to what extent can a recovery-based approach to training counteract this hormonal effect? Heart-rate monitor makers have shown that a lot of body function is correlated with heart rate. Would a sophisticated enough monitor point up whether you are more prone to such weakness?

Today I did not use the bike to warm up, nor did I stretch. I didn’t have time and used my run to recover the car from the garage in town. I could not stretch afterwards either (which I don’t normally do anyway.) My left thigh feels weaker than for a long while, and I feel much stiffer. Who says stretching doesn’t matter?

Resting heart rate 48

Weight 72 kg

Mood

Exercise energy consumed 399 kcal (34 mins run)