The weather is warming up and it is time to race.
I will be running in a local 5k in a few weeks. I would hope to do fairly well but there is an added component that could push me down the standings: Age Graded Timing for the final results. Age Grading favors the fast 50 year old Males (high 16s/ low 17s) or fast Masters Women (mid18s). Damn Baby Boomers....Oh well, I am just hoping to run well. But this did get me thinking about a potential new grading category: The HR grading. This would allow people participating in these events that speak in average HR for all their efforts to feel good about not racing for time.
For example: " I ran a 5k in 22 minutes but my average HR was in zone 2 the whole time. Do you think I could have gone faster? Am I fitter? "
Rather than actually trying to go faster during races or getting flamed for asking the question the HR grading could tell you how fast you could be. Stop drinking caffeine on race day and you might even win. McMillan could even come up with ways to extrapolate based on HR. Could the Olympic's use this methodology (I think the winter biathlete's already use som esort of doing method :)? Think of all the new books that could be written.
I know there are some bugs in this theory (I could use more help). But, I say give the people what they want....Tangible/ Fast results with low effort.
-Woody
I will be running in a local 5k in a few weeks. I would hope to do fairly well but there is an added component that could push me down the standings: Age Graded Timing for the final results. Age Grading favors the fast 50 year old Males (high 16s/ low 17s) or fast Masters Women (mid18s). Damn Baby Boomers....Oh well, I am just hoping to run well. But this did get me thinking about a potential new grading category: The HR grading. This would allow people participating in these events that speak in average HR for all their efforts to feel good about not racing for time.
For example: " I ran a 5k in 22 minutes but my average HR was in zone 2 the whole time. Do you think I could have gone faster? Am I fitter? "
Rather than actually trying to go faster during races or getting flamed for asking the question the HR grading could tell you how fast you could be. Stop drinking caffeine on race day and you might even win. McMillan could even come up with ways to extrapolate based on HR. Could the Olympic's use this methodology (I think the winter biathlete's already use som esort of doing method :)? Think of all the new books that could be written.
I know there are some bugs in this theory (I could use more help). But, I say give the people what they want....Tangible/ Fast results with low effort.
-Woody