Oh, I'm barely jogging those uphills and they sometimes feel like walking so hoping eventually they will lower my HR.

Today we were evacuated (drill) and I had to go up 10 flights of stairs on the way back. Man, I felt out of shape, lol.

I do love my TomTom Optical HR so when I wear my Garmin I noticed it's a POS.  See why?  My Max was 196 a few years ago.

GPS Interval<button>Manual Laps</button>

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Looks that way!

California International Marathon is Sunday.  Weather looks good.  50 to 54 degrees with breezes under 10.  Chance of light rain.

Really taking it easy this week.

CIM Plan:

Taper - Not going to run in the morning at all this week. I'm opting to "sleep in" and get a short, easy afternoon run in after work with a few days of complete rest. I'm going to throw in some random accelerations to compliment the short easy runs.

Nutrition - I found some interesting information where Lydiard suggested about 8 oz of honey in the last few days before the marathon in addition to a high-carb diet. Not all at once but just a little bit here and a little bit there throughout those days. Going to give that a whirl as I've noticed that honey before my workouts has gone very well. Morning of race have honey on wheat toast, a small coffee, one packet of raisin and spice oatmeal and water. I also plan on taking 3 Imodium to avoid repeating a problem that I had in a prior race. 

Race - Find sustainable, sub-threshold effort that I can hold early and, if possible, slightly inch up the effort as I go until I feel I've passed the danger point late in the race where I'll attempt to crank up the effort. Vanilla Bean Gu's before nearest aid stations to Mile 7, 14 and 21 so that I can wash down with water. Looking forward to the excitement of the event, the euphoric feeling of fast/easy running in groups of like minded people, leading up to taking on the challenge and digging deep at end.

Good luck!  Please report back!

 

BTW, I bought a Stryd to get some power information.  It should be fun to see and how it compared to the HR readings.

Cool!

I don't think I could live without my Stryd, simply for the accuracy of the distance and pace measurements no matter where you are.  You'll be able to see just how accurate or inaccurate different treadmills are which is always fun.

The power information is interesting.  If you somehow come up with a power target and just stay on it, you'll probably find that you'll end up with lower HR on your runs as well.  It will essentially slow you down as soon as the uphill starts instead of later after your HR has gone up.  As soon as you crest the hill it would have you speed up immediately instead of waiting for the HR to come down.  Compared to following HR, there is literally no delay and you make much faster adjustments.

I found doing this would result in faster average pace and lower average HR if I actually followed a power target.  Probably because you are more or less at even effort the entire way.  Following HR, you are basically responding to a delayed response (HR feedback).  If you think about it, you run up to an effort then your HR catches up to that stimulus moments later.  If you overshoot then you slow down.  But then you probably undershoot, so you speed up.  Then you overshoot again.  Slow down again.  Rinse and repeat.  Following the power target, you just go to it and stay there.  It's much more natural without so many changes in effort while pursuing the HR target.

Full disclosure, I do not actually train with a power target or HR target anymore.  I currently am very interested in the power, HR and pace numbers after the workout is over but am unaware of what they are in real time.  I focus on relaxation, breathing and my legs and by doing so just end up with Low HR numbers.  I do believe that training to a power target absolutely taught me how to run much more relaxed by feel which allows me to do what I do today.

Another thing that is nice is comparing Power to HR.  What's important to know is that Stryd isn't actually giving you a Power number.  What is it then?  It's actually a made up scale that gives you a super precise grade adjusted pace number.  If you think about it, this allows you to compare fitness gains / losses between any workouts.

This should help especially when I'm traveling and need to use one other than mine.  Once I get it, I'll run on the TM a half mile to see how (in)accurate it is.

 

So how does it work?  For my TomTom, which is not compatible with it, the website says I can still use it as a footpod so I guess it will pair with it and then give me the footpod distance instead?

You have a TomTom fitness watch?  Hmmm.  That's interesting.  I'm not sure.  The footpod gathers information no matter what you do but I've never used it without syncing it directly with a watch.  On the Garmin, it has an option to override GPS pace and distance with Stryd pace and distance.  I'd have to contact Stryd support to get help on the TomTom.

My Garmin 225 is almost not compatible with it.  So either one will not show power during the run, but later when I upload the workout.

 

The TomTom works the same way as the Garmin.  Footpod will prevail and I can use that pace and distance, which is what I'm planning to do once I receive it.

Ok good.  I know that some watches have issues with that.  You can do a simple test to see if you are truly getting distance and pace off the footpod.  Just go into your watch's settings for the footpod and change the calibration factor to some crazy high or low number.  Then go run down the street a little ways.  If the pace looks RIDICULOUSLY fast or slow then you know it's working.  Then you can just change the calibration factor back to the correct setting.  Whatever you do, don't turn on Auto Calibration.  That's bad.