Hi All,
A couple quick things - -
First, Again, Congratulations to All of our finishers from Saturday's 5K+. I have to share that I was so thrilled to have such a great group with us there. We had our teen runners, mentors, some of our local Yonkers High coaches. I've been especially pleased to see more and more parents coming out and not just watching their sons or daughters but actually running and/or walking with them. This is so amazing and exactly why we do this. While Teens Run Yonkers (TRY) is a mentor based program where we help to develop relationships between students and mentors, we're equally about creating opportunities for parents to develop new and stronger bonds with their kids through running. There is no shared experience quite like the challenge of training for and completing a great run - and that's why we do this. So, parents - please keep coming and being a part of TRY.
Also - if you're reading this, first, thank you! Lots of blogs out there to read and you're reading this one and I appreciate it. Please, please join as a subscriber, add your comments, thoughts etc. My goal is for this blog to add value to the Teens Run Yonkers experience and the best for that to happen is to know what helps i.e. tips on running, suggestions for routes near your home, info on running gear? Please let us know -
Finally, back to our starter tips and today's is a pretty important one -
Running Tip 5 : Check your pulse
One of the most critical things - one that is often forgotten at the start of a running program - is your heart rate.
Running is a cardiovascular activity. It trains your heart. Your heart pumps blood through your body. A result of proper exercise is that your heart will be able to pump more blood through your body with every heart beat. So it will need less beats to do the same amount of work for you.
It's important to check your pulse with consistency and see if you are improving. For fair comparison you need to check your pulse under the same conditions whenever you're monitoring it
So the best moment is early in the morning, just after you have woken up, but haven’t gotten out of bed yet. Count the beats during ten seconds and multiply with six to calculate the number of beats per minute. You should see a steady improvement in your pulse. Maybe not from day to day. But you will definitely see your pulse improve over longer periods of time; i.e. weeks or months. And don't get discouraged if this happens slowly over time! All good things (like improvements) take time!
Important : if your pulse is higher (5 to 8 beats per minute) today than yesterday instead of lower this could mean you are overdoing it. Take a rest today and check your pulse again the next day. When it is back to its old level you are ready for your next hard run again.
By the way, if you want to get more sophisticated with this process, there is an infinite number of products you can buy from simple monitors to those that you connect to your chest and monitor as you run. I personally have found these to be rather uncomfortable but that's me. I've been content and felt that I was getting enough information by doing pre and post run testing. But there are folks that swear by 'em so see for yourself. Some of the better know and reputable companies that produce these items include Garmin and Polar - they can be a bit pricey and I imagine - although I haven't shopped for a bit - there are more inexpensive units to be found.
Enjoy and see you tomorrow
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