weekend roundup

To say that I ate too much this week would be a gross understatement. The scale still looks pretty good, but I'm not anticipating anything better than a maintain tomorrow. I mean, I ate barbecue buffet yesterday. I'm not sure it was totally worth it, but it was nice at the time. And I didn't eat my weight in brisket or anything...though I can't say there wasn't pie involved. Substantial amounts of pie.

Anyway, probably maintaining this week, which isn't the end of the world. Other than the eating, this weekend was pretty good. The furniture was delivered, and looks really nice in our living room even though all our old furniture is still languishing in the back of the room until we can store it elsewhere. Rob's mom's church Easter cantata was nice, and it was nice to be a guest at church for a change. Got nearly all the laundry done, scrubbed the catroom floor, vacuumed the house.

I did get a bike in the 7:00 spin class this week, and while it was hard, my heart rate stayed lower this week than the last time I did the class. I didn't hit the 180s even once. Or the high 170s, for that matter. I think my highest HR was 174, and that was right after a standing climb. I am really starting to get a feel for the levels of exertion I need to keep my HR in the right ranges.

Speaking of the right ranges, I'm not totally sure what those are anymore. I've given up on my monitor's "OwnZone" calculation, because I didn't RTFM before I started using it, and I'm not totally sure what I need to do to calculate it. I know it's a 5 minute fit test, but I think there's a gradual increase in exertion level involved. At any rate, it was consistently setting my target zone about 20 bpm lower than I thought it should be, or even than it should be for my age. So I've turned it off, and now I just operate in a 120-170 target range.

Target ranges seem to be pretty subjective, anyway. For my age (31), the M32 sets my target range at 126-161. During the average OwnZone calculation, it was setting between 110-140 and 125-155. After reading Kristi's latest post, I went to the target zone calculator on Polar's website, plugged in my morning resting rate, and it gave me 139-177 (60-90%) as my target range. So, um, which is it guys? To get my 120-170, I just sort of carved out a chunk in the middle of all of them, and that seems to be working for me for now.

Have I mentioned Friday's C-to-5k 20 minute run yet? No? Well, I ran 20 minutes straight on Friday, and it was solidly "not that bad". :) I took it pretty slowly (4.5 mph) and on the treadmill, so my heart rate stayed under control. By about 8-10 minutes into it, I had a good rhythm going and was even able to zone out a little bit. I'm repeating week 5 this week, so today is 5-3-5 minute intervals again. I think for this week's 20 minute run, I'm going to try it on the track...weather be damned. I've got to learn to run in the heat sometime, right?

Well, I'd better get back to work now. I should really get something accomplished before noon.

20 min run...YAYYY YOUUU!!

As for the THR, another thing, like my daily calories, that drives me bonkers.

I sorta did what you did, took an average and then what determines it is how I feel. It's funny now when I'm walking and I start to pant, I know I'm in the 150's when I'm gasping I know I've hit the 160's. And two weeks ago when I felt like an overheated car, 180's...lol