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Training with a Heart-rate monitor

I have been running since 1984, that year I ran my first half marathon and managed to clock a sub 84 min. Those days I was a competitive squash player and running was just a by-product to stay fit. Around 1988 I moved down to the Western Cape and got involved with a more serious running partner and my running performances improved but never to a level of great satisfaction.

1991 was a bad year as an old back-injury got me into hospital and threatened to end my competitive sports career due to a fusion of the lower vertebrae. I was transferred to the Eastern Cape and stayed fit by going to the gym and worked on building volume and strength, increasing my weight from 75 Kg to 89 Kg.

My heart-rate monitoring days started when I moved back to the Western Cape and met my old running partner whom convinced me to get back on the road (-: Doubtful if I should still call him a Friend :-). That was 1996, having picked up 14 Kg ( not fat! ) and not having trained for years made it hard work to get back on the road. Time and again I would give up as my performances where nowhere near what I was used to. That was also the period where I joined "Durbanville athletic club".

Looking for some motivator or tool to get me going made me buy my Polar heart-rate monitor. Having gone the whole hog, buying the best at that time, including the PC interface made me feel rather guilty when I wasn't using it. I lost weight, got quicker, more enduring and started putting up Personal Best times, getting better at it with each outing. Today being forty years young and considered a veteran I run better times than ever before. Don't think that I belong to the elite and talk of times around two hours for the marathon, nothing like that, but I aim to finish every " raced " race in the first five percent home. I like to catch a hot shower you see!

Being able to enjoy my running more than ever before can only being attributed to the tremendous support of my family, the dedicated training and the correct us of my Heart-rate monitor.

The " correct us of my heart-rate monitor " is the reason why I put up this Webpage. No I do not claim that I know it all.

Having searched for Heart rate monitor specific training programs, advise and literature, mostly to no avail, made me decide to make my knowledge available to my fellow runners. What I intend to do here is to reproduce the steps I go through in preparing myself for a mayor race, I will use the actual data, graphs, training programs and results on the way to race day to explain the theory behind the training with a heart rate monitor. First we must select a race!

This is where I got late 1998!

Sins then I have started my own company and needless to say the priorities changed completely and so has my physical ability. Running took a backseat and only an occasional gym session kept me sweating! Today 31/05/1999 I have decided that now is the time to do something about my lost physique.

Firstly I had to set me some goals, always nice to select a race one wants to run, that was easy. The Karoo Ultra Marathon in Lainsburg it will be ( September 25 ). The other goal must be to loose some weight and to find a running partner, the latter was also not to difficult, and about the weight we will see.

Secondly a training program is needed, that I got out of a book called " The Handbook of Training " by " Nick Troop & Steven Seaton " and modified it to fit in with Heart-rate monitor training. How I went by and got to the modifications I explain in the training programs page. The training program selected for this race is the Elite training schedule or program. This program I will only start on July 4. Before that I just want to get going again.

Thirdly I have to find a format to inform you of my progress, lets try it by giving you a weekly summary on how I get on. I will try to run a time trail on the same evening weekly, give you the relevant graph, do a " Test of Concony " on a monthly basis and fill you in on other relevant or interesting facts.

You have any questions, please post them to me! I will attempt to answer them.

Now that we are ready to do our first training together I think it may be of benefit to compare physiques, don't laugh!.

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