I left my Heart Rate Monitor in ....

So what's with this Heart Rate Monitor thing, anyway?

It started with the book. Being called Advanced Marathoning, it can get a bit technical. It presents four different categories of efforts:

1. VO2 Max (Fastest) – designed to improve your ability to transport more oxygen to your muscles.
   
2. Lactate Threshold – designed to increase your ability to work hard without generating too much lactic acid, which would slow you down.
   
3. Medium-Long or Long Run – designed to increase endurance.
   
4. Recovery (Slowest) – designed to ready your self for your next run.
   

Across the running schedule, these different paces are attached to different runs. Early in the schedule, I have to do General Aerobic runs, which, oddly enough, are not labeled with a particular pace (there's some ambiguity in the book that I can't quite sort out, so I've been using pace #3 until I can get something definitive).

As I said yesterday, in Leashed!, I have no experience (and limited ability) to control my pace. If I'm supposed to do Lactate Threshold runs at my Half-Marathon Race Pace, but have never done a Half-Marathon, I would have to guess. Maybe it is 7:30 or so, based on how fast I do 10-12 mile runs and feel sort of toasted afterwards. Even still: I rarely know when I am running at that pace. Worst yet, for a long run, it is supposed to be 90 seconds to 2 minutes slower than goal pace. I can't imagine holding back that much over 15 miles or so.

So I decided to use the other method, heart rate. For that, I'd need a heart rate monitor.


Today, I'm set to run 9 miles as General Aerobic. Maybe I'll mess with things and pretend I'm a Captain. Captain Aerobic. Captain America...

• Captain America... Team America: World Police
  
• Team America: World Police... Trey Parker
• Trey Parker... South Park
• South Park... Isaac Hayes
• Isaac Hayes... Shaft
• Shaft... Samuel L. Jackson
• Samuel L. Jackson... Pulp Fiction
• Pulp Fiction... Orange Juice Pulp
• Orange Juice Pulp... OJ Simpson
• OJ Simpson... Jessica Simpson
• Jessica Simpson... Dukes of Hazzard
• Dukes of Hazzard... The General Lee
• The General Lee... ... General Aerobic!