Friday, August 16, 2013

4 Mile Run in Charlottesville + Runkeeper Mishaps

I ran three days in a row! Even though the mileage wasn't very high, I still feel like I've been doing ALL the running lately. I think it's really what I needed to make me feel like I can actually complete the race I have coming up.

Thursday morning, I did exactly what I did Tuesday morning. I came in early to lab, got stuff going, then went on a run. I planned it so it started at lab, and ended at home, so I could shower before coming back into lab. Tuesday's run was pretty short. I woke up feeling crappy, and drastically changed the run I had planned. Thursday I woke up feeling pretty good. I decided to stick with my plan to do a 4 mile run, but to just go super slow.

As soon as I was ready in lab, I snapped on my heart rate monitor, turned on my music and runkeeper, and got going. Of course, runkeeper decided to malfunction on me. I had barely started, when I heard a voice in my ear telling me that I had just run 0.25 miles in 41 seconds. Um, not possible! I stopped the current workout, and decided to start a new one. 40 seconds later, it was again telling me that I had completed 0.25 miles. I decided to just ignore it, and keep going. That I knew where my route was, and would just use the total time (plus the first 41 seconds) to figure out an overall pace. I didn't want to rely on the time of my watch, since I pause runkeeper at lights, but I don't pause the heart rate monitor. Too many buttons to push and knowing me, I would mess it up.

By the time I hit 1/2 mile, I could tell that the system had fixed itself, and it now had my accurate pace. It was still using the data from the first few points (it was telling me that I had gone over 1 mile by now), so the average pace was off, but that was okay. Once I got home, I looked at the map of the course I had completed, and immediately saw the problem. It had me running zigzags all over the medical campus at UVA!

Crazy zigzags in the first 1/2 mile

The course that I actually did

I attempted to figure out some general splits by combining the two maps.
1 mile: 9:51
2 miles: 20:05
3 miles: 30:16
4 miles: 40:01

Heart Rate Monitor:
Duration; 0:47:05 (I kept it on while walking to cool down, plus this includes times I was paused at a light)
Calories Burned: 526
Average Heart Rate: 165 (85.5%)
Max Heart Rate: 182 (94.3%)
Time In Zone (65-85%): 0:16:40

Workout Lessons Learned:

#5 Don't rely too much on any kind of gps running device. It might show that you are running in circles when you know that you are not. Just go out and run. In a race, if it is telling you something that is slightly different from the posted mile markers on the course, remember that the only time/pace being recorded is the one through the race. And yes, having to run around people in the first mile of a race will add distance.

Just as a reminder, the race I'm referring to is the Charlottesville Women's 4 Miler, and the proceeds to toward breast cancer research. If you're interested at all in supporting this, make a donation! Go to this website, and either make a stand-alone donation, or choose to sponsor me. Look me up by my name (Jennifer Kaplan), and make a donation of your choice. 

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