Fitness adventures and a gear review
Nov. 20th, 2006 01:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
andygatesSwim 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 withstripey_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.
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.
