Women Rock 10k 2014

September 27, 2014

5th 10k - Women Rock

with: Karen

Chicago, IL - Lake Front Path

Time: 1:08:20 Pace: 11:00

Place: 315/982 overall; 87/303 age

This wasn't a PR race BUT this was the first 10k I ran without stopping sans one water station and one water fountain. The path is so narrow it's hard to get around all the runners.

Karen was supposed to meet me at my home around 6:30 am. 6:45 and no Karen. I checked the bus schedule and the next #22 was coming at 7:02. Uh-oh. I sent her a text. Nothing. I left home at 6:55. Standing on the corner Karen calls: "Kym! I just woke up. I pulled a Veronica." The very first race we all did together Veronica woke up at the time we were supposed to leave. I'm worried now if my turn is next. 

So, of course the bus is late. I speed walked down Fullerton to the start line. As I got closer I could hear the announcer. I was seriously running out of time. The course leaders on bikes were yelling at people to get out of the way. I was trying to find the gear check. At this point Im running. The gun goes off as Im approaching gear check. The gear check girl is farting around with some other person. I cut her off, "I'm in the 10k, Im just going to leave this here!!!!!!!!" I got a nod and sped off and ran to the start line. There were no start corrals. I got in the crowd and kept going, trying to start my Runkeeper app and get the music going and start my watch. It was a mess. The gun time was over two minutes before I crossed the start line. 

I recently started training by heart rate and not pace. Ive been running for two years now and I just found out that heart rate monitors are not for people with heart problems! Ha! I used to think I had a heart problem and then I found out my food sensitivities, quite smoking and exercise my heart muscle on the regular. Bam! No more heart problems. So, anyway the deal with heart rate training is that most people run in a zone that's too intense for the heart and that's why we get tired out easily (zone 3 - but depends on if you use the 4 zone or 5 zone chart) . When you train in an easy zone (1 or 2) you're supposed to be able to run "forever." You're conditioning your heart to endure workouts longer and your heart gets stronger. Eventually your pace will get faster. And contrary to popular belief, the faster you go does not equal quiet or more fat loss. According to all the reading I've done on heart rate training the faster zone is not the "fat burning zone." It's quite fascinating and thus far my pace has gotten a bit faster zone training although training in a lower zone had me going slower than normal.The increase in pace is from the first time out zone training. 

To determine in what zones I should be training I had to figure out my resting heart rate and my max heart rate. The resting heart rate is the rate before you even get out of bed. On race day I'm in bed getting a reading and monkeying around with my Garmin watch and heart monitor. I erroneoulsly set up a heart rate alert in addition to a pace alert. during the entire one hour, eight minutes and twenty seconds of this race the stupid watching was beeping and buzzing at me at least every three minutes! Holy friggin crap I was about to throw the watch in the lake. And once you're running you can't change the settings until you stop the watch.