887 Calories, No Asthma!

Erin and I clicked off another run tonight.  The goal was to "embrace" hills, and that's exactly what we did.  We really set out for a decent run, as we've been slacking a bit lately.  If we can lay out a few more like this, I feel like we'll be back on track and ready for a formal training program to begin.  Here's the route:

There were 7 "good, quality" hills on this route.  Doing this route several times in a given month will make you a beast.  Right now, that's my goal.  HR Stats included this time!

As you can see, I added HR stats for my run.  My HR chest strap came in, so I broke it out for this run.  Worth noting, I burned 887 calories!  That's a pretty decent indication that this route was hilly.  According to my watch, 30% of that was fat; I think that's based on my average HR, or how long it was at the lower setting vs. the higher one.  Somewhere I read that if your HR is really high, you're going to be closer to 20%, vs upwards of 35-50% for a lower HR.  Someone will have to correct me on that until I can substantiate that a little better.

I'm beginning to think that mapmyrun.com is working with a relatively incomplete data set .  From where we finished 1 big climb (and then a big downhill) and started another big climb, apparently only dropped 5 feet on the big downhill.  It probably should have been more like 60 feet, leading me to believe that either it didn't give the full elevation of my first climb.  Maybe hard to explain in a sentence or two, but I'm calling into question the elevation points that they use.  In my mind at least, their "total elevation gain" that they offer you is a tad bit, well, off.  Oh well, it's a good approximation of what I can expect.  Worth noting that even though my start and finish point are the same, they are off about 25 feet in elevation...

The other thing that I don't think is being accurately captured is the total distance, given the change in elevation.  The only benchmark distance I remembered to check was the 2 mile mark, which we met in 18 minutes (in spite of 2 big hills en route).  I really don't think we slowed down a lot from then on (if anything, we sped up as we warmed up).  I'm not sure that the 6 miles took us 57ish minutes.  Is it possible that we went further than 6 miles?  Likely, though I can't confirm that until I drive/bike it.  In time.

Aside from my whining about the website, the run was excellent.  I've always struggled with running up hills, so I can only look forward to a full season of taking them head on.  I want to become a better runner, and I feel confident that this is where it starts.   Good times.

Okay, homework and off to bed.  Want to get my mileage above 50 at least for this month.  Geesh, thought 75 would be simple...

D

Running Total:
January: 43.32
2012:  43.32