I know there are quite a few of you out there who use heart rate based training methods.  Since my methods are based primarily on race performance and prescribed paces, I’m a little clueless about how you plan and log runs:

1)  How do you plan your runs?  Do you try to stay between some minimum and maximum heart rate?

2)  When doing tempo runs or intervals, do you plan a warmup in a certain zone, then intervals in another zone with recoveries in another zone?

3)  When you log your runs, what do you record?  Min heart rate?  Avg heart rate?  Max heart rate?

4)  Do you prefer to log heart rate information for each phase of your run?

I think that’s all I’ve got for now.  The more responses, the better.  Thanks.

I hit the treadmill today for 5 miles before a 1 hour strength training session. That, of course was no milestone. In fact, I felt somewhat sluggish during the 5 miles at 9:05 pace…just a bit of a “hangover” from yesterday’s threshold work I suppose.

The true milestone has to do with a website I’ve been working on (less than I’d like to be) for much of the year. If you’ve been a longtime reader, you’ve probably heard me mention in passing that I’ve been working on a social network for runners. Today, I completed the portion of the site that allows users to insert their own custom running plans. It took me much longer than I would have liked, but a lot of the architecture for the whole site is built into this potion of the site. So, things like the training log should take quite a bit less time by comparison. It would be really cool to have at least an alpha version of the site available by this summer, but we’ll have to see how things go. It’s entirely funded by our graphic/web design business so my ability to work on it depends on my client load at any given time. I’ve resisted the temptation to go after venture capital since the thought of selling it or going public aren’t very palatable (even if the site doesn’t exist yet).

Although it seems small, today was a big step in the process. In addition to just a social website, the “Digital Running” concept will include a nationwide team of runners. I truly can’t wait until the day I pull on the Digital Running Jersey and run a race sponsored by my own company. Speaking of which, the logo is still in flux. I was initially thinking a circuit board with the silhouette of a runner coming out of it, but I haven’t really liked any of the rough concepts as yet. So, I’m open to new possibilities. Suggestions from my virtual running buddies are certainly welcome (and encouraged). I do like green and black as colors, though.