The good news is… I have a heart beat
For the last two weeks I have been running with Ben, Al, Mark and Ben's sister Elise (and this last week, a bunch of other people including Rich with Dan and Andrew on their bikes) on Tuesday nights. The goal is to build up the the 12km City to Surf on Sunday the 28th of August.
I first started running about twice every three weeks in March. I was going with Mark or on my own and found it a bit boring when I was alone. Running in a group is fantastic! As Mark said, it's much more motivating. Anyway, Alex said he would lend me his heart-rate monitor to see how I liked it. I love gadgets and knew I wanted to get one myself (Mark let me use his the first time I went running). From Tuesday's experience, as well as Mark, Ben and Al's advice I had a list of features that I would like in a monitor, so I went and bought one today.
I bought a Polar F11, and to be fair it's not really a heart-rate monitor; It's a frickin' personal trainer!
I wanted something with a backlight, and Ben suggested that it would be good to see both the exercise time and the heart rate at the same time. He also recommended being able to monitor my recovery time. I've had a quick flick through the booklet and here's some interesting (though certainly not exhaustive) features I've found.
First up, it can talk to my computer. I though "yeah, whatever" and expected a little asterisk indicating that I need some special receiver. I don't though, and it seems to talk R2-D2 style to a mic, and listens via a speaker. I haven't tested it, but I expect that the software will be Java and hence platform independent. Otherwise I have a project - work out what the beeps mean and make my own application :)
It has a feature called HeartTouch, which means when I move my arm to my heart (moving the two bits together) it activates some cool things. If I am exercising, and I've used the backlight, then it will engage automatically. It also switches to show the time, from the heart rate. I thought that was a cool interface design idea.
It knows my details (weight, height, date of birth, sex) and can test for my maximum oxygen uptake (VO2max). This is what I measured on the exercise bike when I went to the gym the first time with the trainer at an induction session. Based on this reading and some variables I set like how often I want to exercise, it will determine and exercise plan. It suggets the days and the types of exercise I should do to keep my heart-rate within one of the three zones it measures.
It records your progress against what it has suggested and will tell you if you are on track or behind in what you should be doing. It would be cool if it said motivational phrases like "you can do it" and "keep up the good work" every so often :) You keep a training diary of the different types of exercises (I think for example I can label exercises as "Indoor Soccer" or "Tuesday Night Running") and save it all to the watch. You can use the comms function (R2D2) to upload this to a web application which crunches the data and says how wicked you are.
Because I like training in a group, I made sure that I got one that is "coded". What this means is that if 100 people all buy the same monitor as me, we can all train together and they won't interfere with each other. This means that the City to Surf won't make my monitor go haywire :)
Lastly, it has an alarm which tells me if I stray out of my target heart-rate zone, though I think this is a fairly standard feature.
The other different thing I noticed was the heart-monitor attaches to the strap in a different way, and has some "pads" that creep out, which will make a better circuit with my skin.
All in all I'm really happy (so far) and excited to take it out for a spin. I hope I'll be glad I spent a bit more and got a top-model in the coming months. I'm thinking I might "charge" myself 10 bucks each time I exercise and pay it off like that :)
I'm going to do a run with Mark and Rich this evening, and then have soccer at 8:10PM! Talk about commitment. I'll keep you updated.
Two things:
- I might not be able to label the exercises, I saw “short1″and “1 short” and figured that I could. I’ll see.
- I got the grey one :)
Sounds like the coolest toy I would like to own… and I would like to own a lot of cool toys…
I’m sitting here checking my heart rate as I type, and when I do some wicked coding it goes up by about 6-8 beats per minute. I still find it a hassle to wear a watch at the computer, but I’ll get over it ;)
I don’t understand people that run.
HOW can you do it? I run to the end of the street & SERIOUSLY think I’m going to die.
I dont understand. You peoples must be missing a chromosone …. ;)
You just love to buy technology crap don’t you :)
I don’t get running either. It’s extremely boring, and when you do it in a group you can’t talk properly because everyone is huffing and puffing.
Daniel said the following, by I deleted it when I clicked the wrong link in the approval email!:
MMM… Gadgets, Your wicked Matt! Good luck with the running thing. Remember, if you need someone to ride next to you and yell motivating cliches at you, i’m your man!
Happy gadgeting!!
I never used to understand running until one day I went with Al. When I had previously gone running, I had run too fast, pushing my heart rate up to an unsustainable level. Wearing the computer quickly taught me how slow I should be going - a LOT slower than I expected. Ever since then, I have been able to pace myself properly and don’t tire out quickly.
I also found that about every 10 minutes, I hit a bit of a barrier that I need to push through. It is at this point that it is most tempting to stop however if you overcome it, you get the strong endorphin rush and feel absolutely wicked. I now find that I get the strongest rushes around 30 minutes to 1 hour mark which encourages me to do longer runs.
Although none would believe it when I was younger (about 8-15) I used to run daily and did the bridges, city to surf etc etc for a few years.
In any case yeah, running can be great, and as Mark said if you hit the right pace (that you’re body will learn over time anyway) then you can easily run and carry on conversations etc..
The thing to get past is the hump after the first couple of runs … I know the first couple of runs for me woudl be “oh this is wicked easy” then the next week might be “this is a pain in the arse” but it’s like anything you get better, work things out and progress. I know I’d get to the point sometimes where you jsut feel like you could run forever .. no pain, nothing… and I guess thats what peopel chase with most inidividual sports.
Anyway enough BS… running is one of things that takes a while to get any ‘enjoyment’ from it… but the highs are awesomely high and the lows cna be really low… like anything sport related though if aftr a whil you still don’t enjoy it, try something else :)
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