First run with the Garmin

In my last post I talked about some devices that can help track progress over time.  After some advice from a guy at work and some other people who recommended the Garmin Forerunner, I went with the 305.  It arrived from Amazon this morning, so I took the opportunity to set up what was required.

• I downlaoded SportTracks which is some free software to help analyse the data that the Forerunner generates when in use.  The device does come with some software, but I've read that the SportTracks software is better.
• I set up a free account with RunSaturday.com and got my own account here.  There is not much on there in the way of profile information at the moment, but it currently shows the results of my first run which is great.  You have to click on 'analyse training' from that page, to see my data from the first run.

It looks really good.  It integrates with Google Maps and Google Earth and shows things including:

• heart rate
• altitude
• speed etc.

From my first run with the device, where I really wasn't pushing it, I managed about 6.47 miles (very nearly 1/4 of  a marathon) in 0:58:38, which isn't too bad for me.  The particular route is about half the Torbay Half Maraton route, and it is a great route with some nice scenary to take away the thought of actually running.....

I guess, moving forward through the training, this will be the benchmark I'll try and impove against.  It will be interesting to see if my heart rate improves over time, whilst running the same distance.  It will also be interesting to see if I start running the same distance quicker over time.

I love my gadgets, and I'm pleased I bought this one!

I've made a start

I'm officially part of the ChildLine team now, so my JustGiving account is working, and I've made a start on figuring out how I'm going to get around this course.  Thanks to those who have sponsored me already - it is really appreciated!

The event is about 7 months away, which seems like plenty of time, but it soon passes and I don't want to be on the starting line wishing that I'd done more to prepare.

I need to figure out a training programme.  I'm starting from an 'OK' level of fitness, but that isn't going to be good enough to get around this course.  I've looked at gadgets in the past that monitor heartrate and distance travelled etc, on training routes.  Something like this has been recommended to me by a few people, so I will look at these again.  It is possible to integrate these devices with sites such as http://www.runsaturday.com/ which record the data and are great motivators for tracking and improving fitness over time. 

I was chatting to my father in law over the weekend who was a keen marathon runner in his time.  He was saying that he was doing 70 miles a week whilst training for his events!  To be totally honest, this is out of my reach.  I'm going for more like 30-40 miles a week, and building up to that fairly gradually.  We'll see how I get on, but some training guides I've seen on the Internet suggest 30-40 miles as acceptable for someone who wants to get around the course.

I've also been looking at training routes from my house.  The 3 half marathons I've done in the past have all been the Torbay Half Marathon.  I live quite close to this route, and most of my road running has been done on this route.  However, as I'm going to need to start upping the amount of runs I go out on, I could do with saving the 40-50min round trip to get to the Torbay Half Marathon course.  I've been looking at things like http://www.mapmyrun.com to find suitable routes, of different distances, from my house.

Finally, today I went for a small road run today and did 4.5miles in about 45mins.  It was my first road run since this years Torbay Half Marathon in June, and it wasn't too bad.  At least I can say I've made a start this week, but I'm not underestimating the amount of work I have to do!