Run-Down Forums

[Paul]

What are your favorite Heart Rate Monitors and/or Stopwatches and how do you like to use them??

I seldom train with a timing or monitoring device so I'm wondering if I'm missing out on something.

Paul

[Dan]

I don't much care for heart rate monitors. As I've mentioned previously, I believe they focus your attention on the wrong things, i.e. conserving (slowing down, generally) instead of running. How many people actually push harder because their HRM says they can go faster? How many people slow down due to the flip side?

In high school PE, we used to jog a few laps around the gym to warm up. After the equivalent of maybe 1/4 mile, I'd have my heart rate up over 200 and not feel like I'd done much. I'm told that isn't possible for someone in decent shape, but my counting skills weren't that bad... Imagine how slow I'd be jogging if I listened to a heart rate monitor?!

Stopwatches can be looked at several different ways. As I said recently in another thread, one of my coaches often said the only reason to run on the track is to monitor pace. Not to run fast -- you can do that just as easily on the roads (unless you're in spikes) -- but to dial in the pace for set distances. Looked at that way, stopwatches or some method of timing are a necessity.

On the other hand, I almost never run with a stopwatch anymore (except on the track, which I don't do much of these days). I run until I'm tired, and I know pretty much how far I've covered. What do I gain by knowing how much time that took? Part of my reason for that is because I know I'm not in good enough shape to benefit from "racing the watch," so I feel I can progress better by removing that pressure.

Taking the discussion slightly off topic, how about features that would make the ultimate track stopwatch? I've searched long and hard for what should be a very simple concept, yet is seemingly unattainable... Many stopwatches have dual line displays, split counters, countdown timers, etc. The feature sadly lacking is the ability to time multiple events. Seiko has a couple models that can time multiple events that started at the same time (I believe only in countdown timer mode), but that's hardly any more useful than a split time. For you coaches or anyone who's been to a meet and likes to time the races (and multiple athletes within an event), how many times have you wished you didn't have to carry 3 or 4 watches to cover your bases?

I've inquired with Tag Heuer and Accusplit about this, and they are not aware of any stopwatch that can accomplish such a trivial action. Heck, many of the higher end digital models have menu/scroll buttons. It would be intuitive to use something similar to scroll between running times (you'd have to keep them straight somehow, but the watch can't do everything for you) and start/stop/review each one individually, and there shouldn't be any real limit to how many times could be handled.

Anything else that would go into a dream stopwatch? Seiko has the closest thing to what I've described, yet not quite there... Maybe we could collectively pitch the idea to them and create a co-branded Seiko/Run-Down track (& field) masterpiece?

Dan

[Distance_Guru]

I'm not a huge fan of heart rate monitors either. They can come in handy during some interval workouts for timing rest intervals. Although as Dan indicated, not everyones heart rate beats at the same rate for the same amount of effort. During interval workouts most of the experts don't recommend starting an interval until your heart rate is at or below 120 although that can vary a little from person to person. It fits me pretty well and I will sometimes use a HR monitor to determine my rest a oppossed to a set rest time.
_________________
Time is the fire in which we burn

[Dan]

[Hammer]

How successfull was the workout Dan??? After running a mile @ 20-30 seconds faster than race pace a person's heart rate has to be @ about 90% of max and it would probably take about 1-2 min. to get it down to 160/min. I imagine that the last 3 repeats were pretty tough.

[Dan]

Heck, the second one was plenty tough... I don't remember it in great detail at this point (it was 8-9 years ago), but I doubt I was much faster than race pace on the last couple. 1-2 minutes sounds about right for what I was getting rest-wise.

I remember being pretty wiped out after that workout, but I don't recall exactly where it fit into the season and how my body responded.

That same season, we did a tapering workout that consisted of 1600, 1200, 800, 400, and 2x200 with short recovery on the track. It was the week of the conference meet, and I had missed making the travel squad by one spot (I was also having by far my best week of distance training ever, just mis-timed it by a week...), so I really went after it. I decided to try and break my 1500m PR on the opening 1600, and just barely missed it. Let's just the 1200 felt a lot longer than the 1600...

Dan

[Hammer]

I tend to use the 120/min. gauge myself. But since I only counts beats for 6 seconds I am really not holding my runners to is as an exact science. In XC I like to wait untill the 5th runner is @ 120/min. (Bare in mind there hasn't been much difference between my 1st-5th runners.)

[Paul]

Dan, your workout sounds like an upscale Kenyan training session

Paul

[Dan]

Yeah, if only it were done 25% faster...

Dan

[training2run]

Since I run marathons in both the US (26.2 miles) and in Mexico (42K), I wear the Timex Ironman 50 lap version. This allows me to record splits every mile or every kilometer.

Moving from flat as a pancake Houston, Texas, to the mountains of central Mexico (7,000) feet, I found I was no longer able to gauge the intensity of my workouts (I was training too slow). I dug out my old "WristCoach-2" pulse monitor, and use it from time to time to keep me on track (even though most of my training is on trails ). Mike www.training2run.com