Progress

Each Saturday I spend 90 minutes in the gym. The last half of the session is spent on the treadmill. For the last five weeks, I've had the treadmill set at the same speed - 9.6km/h - a gentle jog. I have a heart rate monitor which loads the data onto my PC, so that I can compare each session. As I know that the conditions of each run are identical in the gym, then any improvement in aerobic conditioning shows up as a reduction in heart rate.

I figured I'd see some improvement, but I never expected what I saw when I overlaid the last month's traces! Below are the heart rate traces from the following dates:
16th October 2004
30th October 2004
13th November 2004
20th November 2004


It's easy to spot which trace is which as each subsequent week is at a lower heart rate! I was not expecting progress to be this marked! There has been a 10bpm decrease in heart rate in only 5 weeks.

I haven't had much experience of treadmill running, so this may simply be that I'm getting used to the treadmill, however I am seeing similar improvements on the road. It's just that it is harder to make direct comparisons for road sessions, due to the variables of route, pace, wind, heat, gradient etc.

I'm convinced about the benefits of aerobic base training. Long may this continue!