First Sunday Run

Happy Belated Thanksgiving to all.  Like most people, Christine and I spent our Thanksgiving with my family in NY, and like most people, put on a few additional pounds thanks to the traditional thanksgiving feast.  Our feast consisted of Turkey, honey baked ham, red skin mashed potatoes, tofu and stringbeans, and salad.

As much as I love visiting home and eating lots of great food, it is much harder to maintain a consistent and disciplined eating and exercise routine.  Luckily, I'm still in the "pre-season" stages.  Today, I made sure I got out on the track to baseline my running.  Christine and I went to a local high school to use their track.  Some quick stats:

Warm-up
4:35 minutes
800 meters
153 average heart rate

Stretch

Workout
14:33 minutes
1.5 miles
175 average heart rate

Cool-down
400 meters

Stretch

All me to make some excuses up before you mock my time and heart rate, it's my first time on the track in a while! :)  The funny thing is, each time fI passed Christine on the track, my hear rate monitor was beeping, telling me that I was over the zone of 160, and each time, Christine laughed but at the same time cheered me on.  Thanks Christine :) 

I purchased a Polar FS1 hear rate monitor off amazon.com for about $50 or $60.  We didn't want a fancy one, at least not until we knew what our equipment needs were going to be.  The watch/monitor takes a little getting used to.  It is definitely a basic monitor without many fancy features.  It'll monitor your heart rate, and workout time, and store the latest workout - which is all you really need.  Some monitors will provide additional features such as running pods to monitor distance and rate, or a cycling pod which monitors speed, cadence and distance.  These watches can get very expensive, upwards of $300 or more, plus the additional pods are extra.  The Polar FS1, while it does its job, is not the most comfortable wrist monitor.  The plastic is hard and digs into my wrist.  Lucky for me, its winter time, so I can put the monitor over my long sleeve.

Anyone have experiences with other monitors?  I would appreciate your input on alternative monitors, especially for triathletes.

I still have yet to get into pool, I hope to baseline my swimming during this week, before the official practices start next week.  Stay tuned!