Adrian's Summer Running 2011: Week 2 (RaceRx Study)

Well, for week 2 of this running/cardio challenge, I got involved in a different program.  A guy at my work emailed everyone and talked about an organization in town, called Race RX.  They were doing an experimental study using heart rate monitoring for training in running.

I was somewhat intrigued by this and thought that it might help motivate me to run more, so I volunteered for this study.  It was very strange and not the best defined.  Apparently there were 3 different study groups and each one was doing a different study but all using heart rate monitors.  My group apparently was the hard one where we had to run 5 days a week and the times were between 20 and 60 minutes.  At each minute, we had to be in a certain heart rate range (or zone) according to a sheet they gave us after an initial assessment.  Another group was just told to exercise for 20 to 60 minutes and maintain a wide heart rate range.

The initial assessment was at their facility at 286 North 850 West in Logan.  I was surprised at the size of this place and how nice it was.  They had a lot of treadmills and other similar machines and had a huge back of their facility where they had the rest of their equipment.  They had me run on a treadmill and increasing speeds and put this horrible mask on my face to measure oxygen.  I also wore a Polar Heart Rate Monitor that worked pretty well.  They said they wanted me to get to an exertion level of 8 (on a scale of 10) and let them know.  They recorded all of the results and sent me my detailed workout schedule before the study was supposed to happen.

For this study, all participants had to buy a heart rate monitor.  Race RX had their own (with their name on it) that they had on a 25% discount.  So I got this one:

...and it didn't really work. So I had to take it back to exchange it with another one that "worked" but not really well.  It's just a low end, piece-of-junk heart rate monitor.  (After looking up HRMs, they can cost up to about ~$400...  This was one $65, and then discounted 25%).

The night before first week of training, we got our workouts emailed to us.  They came in 7 pdfs; the first 6 had 3 exercises and the last had 2, to make 20 workouts: 5 per week for 4 weeks.  My target heart rates were broken into 4 zones: 0, 1, 2, and 3.  Here is what it looked like:

And here is the example of workout number 1.

The first workout was relatively easy and they generally got harder as the weeks went on.

Here are my results from Week 2 of the cardio/fitness challenge.  I did the heart rate monitor training on Mon-Thur and on Sat (as you can see).
(This is week 1 of the RaceRx study)