The Challenge
Run for 30 minutes every day for 90 days.
How
Each run shall be for 30 minutes, keeping my heart rate at or below 151 beats per minute (bpm). Walking is permitted if my heart rate gets too high. Once my heart rate comes down I go back to running.
Each run will start with a warm up and finish with a cool down. The time for these isn’t included in the 30 minutes. Heart rate will be measured with my Garmin 610 Forerunner.
Neither speed nor distance matters, except as a benchmark for improving fitness. Hopefully I’ll speed up from my current (~9mins/km@151bpm) to maybe around 6:30 mins/km. I can easily run that speed now, but I want to be able to run it aerobically.
Why
I’ve just run a marathon, but it was really slow and I want to improve both my speed and fitness. Since the taper for the marathon, the race and the week off after, I’ve lost quite a bit of conditioning. Time to kickstart the gains.
Running at or below 151 bpm is from Phil Maffetone. 151 is the heart rate I calculated to be before my system switches from aerobic to anaerobic. Training under your aerobic heart rate for some period of time is the way Mark Allen was launched into the highlight of his career as one of the greatest triathletes of our era.
My long term running goal is to run a marathon under 3 hours. That requires a great aerobic base. Hence this 90 Day Test.
When
The challenge starts today, 8 September 2012 and finishes on 6 December 2012.