Heart Rate Monitoring - One of Four Things Runners Should Track to Stay Motivated

Jun 26, 2009 | View all June 2009 articles

Four things runners should track to stay motivated
June 25, 3:03 PM
by Aaron Todd – Providence Running Fitness Examiner

It can be hard stay motivated when you’re just starting a running program. Those first few runs can feel sluggish, with heavy legs and burning lungs. It’s almost enough to make you want to give up.

But fear not! You’ll begin to notice a difference in your fitness level very quickly, if you know what to look for. The best way to stay motivated is to track your progress so you can see just how far you’ve come.

Here are four things to track that can give you quantitative data that will illustrate how much thinner, faster and more fit you are.

1) Weight
Running burns more calories than nearly any other aerobic exercise. A solid running program, combined with a reasonable diet, is one of the best ways to lose weight. By tracking your weight on a daily or weekly basis, you will stay motivated to keep it up as you see the progress on the scale.

2) Mileage
As you begin to build strength and endurance, you’ll find that it’s easier to cover your morning 2-3 mile loop, and may want to start sprinkling in some 3-4 milers. As time goes on, the 10 miles a week that seemed impossible eight weeks earlier seem like a joke when you’ve doubled your output. Just be sure that you don’t increase your mileage more than 10 percent a week, or you will risk injury.

3) Pace
Just as your starting mileage will seem like a joke 10-12 weeks into your program, so will your pace. As your weight drops and your mileage increases, you’ll find that your pace might have dropped by a minute per mile or more.

4) Heart Rate
The single-best indicator of your fitness may actually be the progress you see in your heart rate. Wearing a heart rate monitor during your run will let you know exactly how hard you are working. When you see that your heart rate is 10-15 beats per minute lower than it was at the same pace a month or two earlier, you know you have made real progress.

The best way to get a real picture of just how far you’ve come is to combine all these sets of data. Seeing that you’ve lost 20 pounds, tripled your starting mileage and are running at a faster clip with less effort is the best motivation to keep going and reach all of your goals.

{ Permalink | Home | Back to NuMetrex.com }

Comments:


 

You must preview your comments before submitting.