Fitness adventures and a gear review

[andygates]

Swim training enters build-a-base mode now, with the plan being to swim regularly and have strict targets to aim for each month and each session, otherwise I get bored, skive and goof around.  So this month's target was a 500m set... until I got that easily this morning.  Yay!  Nice to discover that I have a rhythm to find, now to keep it all clean.

Cycling was hugely entertaining, with a bunch of us hooning around Calshot Velodrome (short and steep).  It was another novice-taster day but I really enjoyed it - not having a cataclysmic hangover after partying with stripey_mouse and pals helped, possibly.  The coach wouldn't let me take the headcam round, but there are some snaps here at Flickr and a rather nice one of me, Rollo and Vicky just before riding around a huge wheel-destroying crash!  They don't call it the Wall Of Death for nothing, though the Wall Of Expensive Retribution For Inattention might be a better name...    I'd really like to give this a go and do some scratch races, but it's all so damned distant.  Calshot's a tiring 3.5h drive, Newport is easier... maybe we need a posse?

I've been playing with my winter training toy, the new Suunto T3 HRM this week.  So far I'm impressed: the footpod is grand, giving me nags in any format I chose.  There's all the zoning a boy could wish for, and it keeps a stack of logs along with things like counts of workouts per week and even total calories (always handy if you're misfuelling).  Logs break down into time spent in zones, peak and average HR, and so on, and there are enough laps and interval timers to intimidate even me.  The other cute thing is the Training Effect.  TE is basically an algorithmic EPOC measure - based on current HR and recovery curves plus your fitness level (which you initially enter and it subsequently updates) and stats - which works out how hard a workout actually was for you.  You get two nice things: a brainless 1-5 scale (1=active recovery, 2=easy workout, 3=decent workout, 4=stiff, do a 1-2 next time, 5=crikey!) and an estimated time to reach a designated level at current intensity.  Which means you could decide to do a ball-buster 4.2, and it'd tell you to sprint your lungs out until you hear the cheery beep - keep going - don't slack or the target time will slip away like a contended download progress bar!  Nightmare.  The other side to TE is, of course, that if you're doing high-3s and 4's daily, it can serve as a warning of potential overtraining and a need to include lighter sessions.

Still, my resting HR is down to about 68 from its pre-triathlon 73, so that's nice.  And I have a kink for Finnish techno toys, if not their fermented malt porridge.

Comments

[thudthwacker.livejournal.com]

The Suunto sounds extremely cool -- though as I have precisely zero interest in endurance training, that could just be the geek talking.

Still and all: you mentioned interval timers. Is it appropriate for, say, Tabata interval training? Also: is it useful if you don't have a Winders box handy? 'Cuz I don't, and don't wanna. (Though, in truth, this is idle chatter on my part -- I don't have $150 to spend on workout gear, nor have I gotten off my arse to find a good place to do sprint workouts. On the other hand, few things motivate like having an expensive piece of gear you couldn't afford in the first place staring at you from the bookcase, whispering "wiiiiiimp. wiiiiiiiimp. biiiiig giiiiirl's blooooooooooouse...")

[andygates.livejournal.com]

There are three timers for that sort of thing: a warmup and two intervals, and each can be set to the second. So if you wanted, say, a ten-minute warmup followed by sets of 2:30 minutes with a 0:45 second rest, yes, it will do that. You can turn each element on or off independently. I might have to use that for sprint drills when running: a fifteen-minute warmup, then running for at, say, moderate pace for two minutes and then balls-out for thirty seconds, repeat until you fall over in a hedge. Good way to do an HRMax test too... ...and the same thing would do 45-second intervals for swim lengths "on 45". And I think it logs each intervl as a lap with its own HRMax, etc.

Like you say, the geek factor is pretty stratospheric. As for other OSes, it's native Windows but the PC pod (which I don't have) is a pretty standard USB device, so there are dev mutterings in two routes: treat it as a memory stick, or run a Windows emulator. Minus two geek points for no Linux or Web software.

[skean.livejournal.com]

Polar has web software direct from the IR interface.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Yes yes, Polar boy! But since I don't have the PC connector (it's on my Chrimbo list) and do have a Windows XP box, it's moot. ;)

[skean.livejournal.com]

Just for thud. You know, making sure HE makes the right decision on what product is best for him :-)

[ravenbait.livejournal.com]

A new HRM is something on my list as well. I'm still making do with that little Tchibo thing.

On the other hand, my next toy is definitely going to be one of the new Sony sports MP3 players because my minidiscs are finally giving up the ghost after several years hard service.

The Training Effect could just about sell me, given my propensity for over-training.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Well, I'll be wearing it up at the weekend, so you can tickle it then. In terms of over-training prevention I can see it being handy for a recovery session to beep and say "hey up, that's enough of that for today."

[thudthwacker.livejournal.com]

You mention that the TE is based on your "fitness level," which you enter. How do you figure that out? Or did I misread your original post?

[andygates.livejournal.com]

It starts out as a guess on a scale of 1-14, where 1 = couch potato and 12 = pro endurance athlete; you pick the competence and time spent and plug in the magic number. It then claims to auto-update, and shame upon me if it doesn't!

It could all be smoke and mirrors, of course. But I'm seduced by their rimless glasses and the staggering lack of merchandising tat Suunto do. As well as their dive computers: dive computers are serious, important kit for keeping people not-dead. By extension, Suunto come across as serious folk.

[ravenbait.livejournal.com]

And it's only 150 quid with the foot pod. Restricting myself to the HRM alone makes it a far more accessible 100. Or 114 in sexy shiny black.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

The shiny black with inverse display is very you, darling.