PBIM HM with Garmin Training Plan

 This is the running post agan after 4 years.  Mainly due to lack of event that I joined in 2019 and no event organized during the year of 2020 and 2021 due to COVID.  Starting 2022, running event started again.

However, in 2021, only virtual running events were being organized.  For the last 2~3 Virtual HM, I find it harder and hard to complete it.  Thus, I decided to follow a free trainng plan.  Garmin Training plan was chosen since I am using Garmin watch.

Throughout the whole training plan, I did follow more than 90% of the training, except for cross training.  The training that I skipped was due to either raining or personal engagement.  Out of 80 trainings, only 2 activities that I skipped due to personal reason.

By following Garmin Training plan, I managed to increase my weekly mileage to more than 30km without serious pain.  Previously, when I run on myself, whenever I reached weekly mileage of 20km, I started to feel pain at my leg.

There are 2 main differences between the training plan and I run by myseft.  Firstly, the training plan ask for cool down (walk) of 5~10 mins after each training session that I didn't do that when I run myself.  Secondly, there are variety of running style, Interval, Easy, etc in Garmin Training Plan while I always run at almost the same pace when I run myself.  These are the 2 main different that I am able to log more than 30km per week, I think.

Although I am not able to improve my time after joining the Garmin Training Plan, but I didn't feel out of breath by running with this pace, not like a few HMs before.  I guess this is the improvement from the plan.

Following is the HR vs Pace for HM from my available data, ie. 10.6sec/km improvement for 5s increase in HR.

As for this particular run, the pace vs HR is as follow.

FR610 vs FR220

My experience in FR610 and FR220.

I have been using FR610 for 7 months and decided to trade in for FR220 for RM300.  My experience for FR610 is not very pleasant.

The most annoying thing about my FR610 was the battery charging.  I have to try many times before the watch can be charged.  I have tried all the suggestions that I can find in the internet but I still could solve my problem.  Either I was unlucky or it was the "returned" watch that I purchased.

Even if the contact is good, I will get reverse charging every now and then.  Previously, when this occurred, I just turned off the watch and turned it on again to have it charge normally.  However, this wasn't the case for the last 2 rounds.  I just had to let it "charged" to 0% before it can be charged normally.

Lastly, I was a bit disappointed with the battery life.  I can only use it for ~ 4 hours in running before I have to charge again.

I blamed all of those to the cheap price for the watch, ie. USD179.99, which I sometime think is the returned watch.

When a friend of mine is willing to trade-in my FR610 for FR220, I have decided to take the offer although I just use it for just half a year.

After using FR220 for just 2 weeks, I am very happy with the performance.  The battery can last for more than 5 hours after charge.  Also, a single charging from flat battery is just around 3 hours.

The speed of GPS signal acquisition is very fast, a lot faster than the FR610.

However, the 2 features of FR610 that I would miss are the Virtual Racer and Virtual Partner.  Although I have not been able to use these features, but I think this is an interesting features to help pacing strategy in a race

Other than that, I have all the features that I want in FR220.

I hope to be able to use the watch for 2 years!

My Running Cadence

I just bought myself a Garmin Foot Pod a few days ago.  Today is the first time I used it for my run.  I used it in my weekly long run (last ~2hours or 18km) with phone's metronome on, and set at 180 beats per minute.

After the run, I looked at the run cadence data and found several interesting findings:-
1.  For the first 20 mins, I was running at 182 spm.
2.  Eventually, my run cadence dropped to 180 spm.
3.  When I tried to speed up for 2 mins right after 1 hour of running, my run cadence further dropped to 176 spm.
4.  When I ran back at my original targeted speed of ~6:45 min/km, my run cadence increased back to 178 spm.
5.  The run cadence of 178 spm only last for another 20 mins before it dropped back to 176 spm.
6.  At close to 2 hour of run, I again increased my speed.  This time, my run cadence increased back to 178 spm for only around 5 mins before it dropped back to 176 spm.
7.  At the end my long run, where I was getting real tired, my run cadence varied from 176 spm to even 172 spm.

From the data, two areas that I need to focus on in order to maintain my run cadence of 180 spm, ie. when I increases my speed and when I get tired.  Apparently, I didn't respond well with my phone's metronome.  Or, I could be even worse without the metronome on.  I will try out one day to find out.

Garmin Watch vs Android HandyRunner Entry

I had a little experiment to see how accurate the HandyRunner capturing the running information on my Samsung Android Phone.

From the distant point of view, HandyRunner is capturing relatively accurate (see below).

Although the duration captured by HandyRunner is longer, it is because I pressed on the Start button earlier on HandyRunner before the run and  I Stop it slightly later.  Since I do not have a proper arm pouch for my phone I have to start the program first and then put the phone in my arm pouch before the run.  Thus, I would say that duration and pace captured by HandyRunner is pretty accurate.

As for the map captured (see below), both devices are giving me comparable data but the elevation information from HandyRunner is not that nice.

Lastly for the pace (see below), since there's no heart beat monitoring for HandyRunner, there will not be any data captured by HandyRunner.  As observed from the starting and ending pace captured by HandyRunner, that is due to fact that I insert my phone to the pouch before the run.  So, HandyRunner is "accurately" capturing that "slow" start and stop also.

Except for the elevation, I think HandyRunner can be used as replacement just in case I do not have the Garmin watch handy.  Moreover, playing music and having HandyRunner running for the whole run (~1 hour) only consume 4% of my phone battery.

My First Half Marathon - APBIM 2012

As this is my first long run race, I was very excited.  I initially planned to sleep from 7pm to 11pm before leaving for the race.  However, I only managed to take 1 hour sleep from 7:30pm to around 8:30pm.  Filled my stomach with noodles and ~1.5 liters of water before leaving for the race.

I reached the race site at around 1:30am and had my car properly parked before the road closure.  Unfortunately, I started to feel hungry and sleepy at around 3am just before the race started.  I just ignore the feeling and focus on the run.

Getting ready to the starting line, I was stuck in almost the middle of the crowd together with my friends.

When the gun fired, everything went as expected and I was squeezing my way to the front of the crowd (of course I didn't succeed).  At around 1km after the starting line, the road became narrow and everyone was stuck there again.  I had to run on the side of the road to make my way up front as much as I can.

As I normally run for 10 km during my training, I was very relax for the 1st 10 km including a bit of climbing in the middle of the bridge.  I was at the pace of <6min/km for the 1st 10km except at area where I was stuck in the middle of the crowd.  I then stopped for the drink and walked about 1min before I continued to run again.

I started to feel a bit of tired at ~13 km (after 1.5 hours of running).  13~14 km is the longest continues run that I had during my training.  So, I guess that's the limit.  I had to push myself to move forward and checking my watch very often to know how many km left.

At 17 km point, I was really struggling.  My mind was asking me to stop running and just walk to finish the race.  On the other hand, I wanted to hit the 2:15 timing and I pushed myself to just keep on running... just 4 km to go... I told myself that I could do 4km during training with no sweat!  However, I really had to spend conscious effort to move every single step after the 17 km point.  Running for 1 km was a great effort and a long way to go.  The sign of "Pain Now...  Char Koey Teow Later.." tells me that a lot of people is struggling as well and I just had to keep on running to complete the race.

I was so excited when I saw the sign of just 1 km to go.  Although I heard that I had to keep my pace constant but I can't help myself from running faster.  I checked my Garmin watch to know that I was running at less than 5mins/km.  However, the fast run only last for around 300m (not the1 km fast run that I wished) and I had to slow down to around 6:40min/km pace.

I finally complete the race with 2:11 on my watch!  I was so excited and couldn't express my feeling at that moment.  I knew for sure that I will take another half marathon again some time.

Before I started my real training (~1 year ago), I set the target for myself to complete the race in 3 hour time.  After I started the real training (~8 months ago), I set up another target to complete the race in 2.5 hours.  A few weeks before the race, I think I am going to shoot for 2h15mins.

Well, I finally made it in 2:11:35 according to official time.

The tracking from Garmin Forerunner 210 is with the time of 2:11:49.

To me, this is very accurate tracking that I can certainly make use of the tool for future training.

To have a better half marathon run, I think I need to train for a longer run ~18 km so that I will not be struggling like what I experienced after the 17 km point.  Food and drink planning that I had for this run was not bad.

Overall, I am satisfy with the results despite having a bit of knees discomfort for 2 days after the run.