Fit Test: Wed 10th Dec 2003

I did my second 'Fit Test' with my HRM, no improvement (yet): -

• OwnINDEX = 36
• HRmax-p = 188

Working out my baseline personal stats

I bought the Polar s610i Heart Rate Monitor, as I thought that this time round I could use all the help I could get! When training for the NYC Marathon I was completely clueless as to what my body was going through and how to improve performance etc. My only yardstick for improvement was the fact that it was getting longer and longer during a run before I felt like vomiting a lung out onto the pavement. So, this time round I thought I'd track my performance and (hopefully) improve my time.

Its got a feature called the 'Fitness Test' which I tried last night, it involves lying on your back with the chest-strap transmitter on for 3 minutes, it then works out various thing like oxygen intake and maximum heart rate. It also gives you something called an 'OwnIndex'. Mine comes out at 36 which according to my age (34) is 'fair': -

Men
Age	Fitness Level
	Very Poor	Poor	Fair	Average	Good	Very Good	Excel- lent
20-24	<32	32-37	38-43	44-50	51-56	57-62	>62
25-29	<31	31-35	36-42	43-48	49-53	54-59	>59
30-34	<29	29-34	35-40	41-45	46-51	52-56	>56
35-39	<28	28-32	33-38	39-43	44-48	49-54	>54
40-44	<26	26-31	32-35	36-41	42-46	47-51	>51
45-49	<25	25-29	30-34	35-39	40-43	44-48	>48
50-54	<24	24-28	29-32	33-36	37-41	42-46	>46
55-59	<22	22-26	27-30	31-34	35-39	40-43	>43
60-65	<21	21-24	25-28	29-32	33-36	37-40	>40

hope to be able to get this up to 'good' or 'very good' come marathon time.

The Fitness Test also worked out my HRmax to be 188 and my VO2max to be 32 (no idea yet if thats good or bad?). I guess the heart rate is slightly encouraging as the rule-of-thumb method for working out HRmax makes it 186 (ie. 220 minus Age)

This in turn has an effect on the intensity of different runs. According to the Polar website an 'Easy' run is 60-75% HRmax, a 'Moderate' run is 75-85% and a 'Hard' run is 85-100%. So here is a table of my workout target HR (this table will be posted after each weekly 'Fitness Test'):-

% HRmax	Target HR
50	94
55	103
60	113
65	122
70	132
75	141
80	150
85	160
90	169
95	179
100	188