just under 10 miles this morning

nice Pam! 5 for me - back to doing the fitness center so it was the treadmill... oh well - that's much better than I normally do on that thing!

Kimmie, Polar heart rate monitors often work with treadmills. Meaning if you wear the chest strap, the heart rate will show up on the treadmill screen as well as your watch. Even the cheapest Polar hrm that only shows current heart rate and nothing else works at my gym. Also works with the gym bikes and elipticals as well. My target heart rate on long runs is 137-143. Thats about 6.3 mph on the treadmill. When I get to steady state runs, which are about 7.4 miles per hour, my heart rate climbs to 155-163 or so. That is about marathon pace right now. But everyone's heart rate will be different based on fitness, age and genetics. The tricep comment was just me spouting off about how training I do for cycling and swimming, happened to be useful, while skiing. I also find that the leg strength I have gained from cycling has dramatically improved my running. However, my cycle training is very much like running. We do long rides, hill rides, tempo rides and intervals. Just riding with friends on the beach path at a leisurely pace doesn't do squat.

I need to get a heart rate monitor- I checked my HR in between each one and it was always high 140s- that's not very high, is it? How high should it be when running speed?

It really varies between individuals as Erika mentioned. First step would be to run some hill repeats to try and measure your actual max HR (as opposed to the formulas which are rough estimates). From that number, I generally use 70-75% of your working HR as a ceiling for easy days and 85% of working HR as a floor for hard workouts. The formula I use is called the Karvonen formula. 70% ceiling = Resting + .70 * (Max - Resting) = 55 + .7(183-55) = 146 85% floor = Resting + .85 * (Max - Resting) = 55+.85*(183-55) = 165 On my MP efforts, I seem to be right in the low 160's or 80-85% MHR. I'm not entirely sure I can sustain it though.

It really varies between individuals as Erika mentioned. First step would be to run some hill repeats to try and measure your actual max HR (as opposed to the formulas which are rough estimates). From that number, I generally use 70-75% of your working HR as a ceiling for easy days and 85% of working HR as a floor for hard workouts. The formula I use is called the Karvonen formula. 70% ceiling = Resting + .70 * (Max - Resting) = 55 + .7(183-55) = 146 85% floor = Resting + .85 * (Max - Resting) = 55+.85*(183-55) = 165 On my MP efforts, I seem to be right in the low 160's or 80-85% MHR. I'm not entirely sure I can sustain it though.

You type fast too!

Got in 3.6 today split in 2 runs. Both were easy and felt nice. As far as the HR conversation goes, my goal is to finish all easy runs with AHR in the 140s.

Kimmie - looks like you got some good answers on the HR thing Dave - pictures? I'm not entirely happy with them because the day was kind of gray when we took them, but for what it's worth... http://www.pbase.com/lking/whitefish09

Shan, Just don't try and kiss me. I've got strep throat.