Polar Running Plan and me (1)

As I mentioned here, I started the Half Marathon Polar program with a Running test which is supported by the Vantage V2 I use .. just to make sure I’m in the right HR zone (as Polar sees it .. there are various formulas and approaches for defining the HR zones).

Based on that, Zone 2 is a very challenging range of 112-129 bpm for me .. I’m not used to have the heart rate so low during running .. maybe 140 bpm.. but 129?! Really?

Today I started the journey with a run, where the first 30 minutes I should have been under 130 BPM. It was tough .. I must admit it .. and I failed from time to time to stay under 130, I had to walk from time to time, to get my pulse lower .. finally I managed to learn how to stay under 130 bpm without walking. It’s a process, it’s not easy .. and I will adapt, if I want to keep this program and evaluate its impact on my fitness level.

I used the trustworthy H10 for HR monitoring and Stryd for distance/pace/power.

Before going for the run, I performed the Orthostatic test and Leg Recovery test, both encouraged me with “recovered” labels.

Polar seems to like the longer and lower HR runs, the Running Index for this session being higher than the previous ones.

One thing … for those who have activated the “Do not disturb” on their Vantage V, please keep in mind that the exercise mode doesn’t create an exception to allow you to have the backlight on based on your wrist movement – everything will be dark until the DND expires or you hit the light button. To me it seems to be an imperfect customer experience, I would expect the watch to know that I’m awake and interested in seeing the backlight on, regardless of my DND time preferences. I also know that you can have the light fully on when you start the workout … but I don’t need to carry a torch with me. I’m picking on this since Garmin recently made some tweaks to their wrist activated backlight behavior in relation with DND and your awake state – for example, it might disable the wrist turn backlight if you’re asleep and the DND period didn’t start yet.

I’ll continue to collect data over the next weeks (12 of them) and share my impressions.

Happy running and take care of you!