Day 1 - 100Runs/100 Days - 1/100

1 Down, 99 to go. Damn! That's A LOT of running!

Today (as in last Wednesday when I wrote this) was day one of the challenge and man was today a special way to start it off. Things have been winding down at work and today was second to last day at work, so I took advantage of that fact and headed out a little early. After rushing home I quickly changed and hopped back in the Jeep to head to the local HS track.

You may ask why did I drive to go run somewhere? I have no problem with snow, but when it comes to ice and "wintry-mix" I draw the line. I didn't want to call it quits on day 1 of the challenge and since my gym membership has ended with my move, I thought the track was the safest surface to run on.

The structure of the track and its porosity prevented any of the ice from sticking or creating a slick sheet like much of the cement/asphalt did around my house, so I deemed it safe to run on. The other challenge was the temperature, today was warmer then the past few days, but 30 is still pretty chilly to be out running. I doubled up on every layer, including wearing both compression shorts and running tights.

Even with the chilly weather I was able to muster a smirk...


I started off pretty slow but after half a mile I looked down to see I was running 7:40ish miles, my desire to warm up may have contributed to the speed, but I decided to put it in drive and go. My original plan was 9:00/mile but finished 4.2 miles in 32 minutes, so...slightly faster.

This run worked perfectly for a running Lactate Threshold heart rate test, used to determine heart rate zones and corresponding heart rate ranges, I used Joe Friel's ranges and found them to be the below:


I also made a spread sheet, but then figured out that you can simply enter you measured LTHR in Training Peaks, select the Joe Friel for running method, and it will compute the zones for you, either way I ended w/ the same results. Training Peaks is a really neat tool and I'm liking it more and more as I figure it out. I still have a lot to learn but I think I'm starting to get the hang of it, pretty glad I did that webinar.

After uploading my run I was simply able to isolate the laps which pertained to the 20 minutes of interest, or after the initial 10 minute "warm-up" and found my LTHR to be 179BPM (beats per minute).


At the end of my run, my keys were frozen to this fence, yup actually stuck so I decided to take a picture. Eventually they gave up their hold on the fence and I headed home, only for the roads in Fort Payne to be declared "impassable" by the local sheriffs office, glad I decided to run on the track!