Yesterday I went out on my bike and, using the bike’s odometer to measure the distance, rode up the coast for 5 kilometers. This morning I put on my old sneakers and my new Polar heart rate monitor (thank you little brother for my X-mas present) and jogged the 5 kilometers up the coast and back again. My first ever 10 km run.
My heart rate monitor gave me my total time as 1 hr 4 mins with an average heart rate of 165 bpm. Now I am sure that taking over an hour to run 10 kilometers is not a good time, but this just leaves me a lot of room for improvement. One thing I do need to sort out is that my heart rate monitor seemed to suggest that I should be training with a heart rate of between 140 and 160 bpm. Unfortunately, for almost the entire run my heart insisted on beating at around 166 bpm. This resulted in the watch continually flashing and beeping a warning signal, the watch equivalent of Scotty shouting “I’m giving it all she’s got captain if I push it any harder the whole thing will blow.”
Perhaps a quick browse through the manual is a good idea.
TRAVEL 67 : Chris Willson Photography 
Good job man!
What age are you? your maximum BPM depends on your age Im 26 and mine is around one hundred and ninety something. Cycling alot and pushing yourself over your threshold will help your breathing when you run and lower you BPM aswell and build up your muscles in your thighs. Funny enough running doesn’t help your cycling performance.
I started running 3 months ago, doing about 3 km’s per day. I attempted my first 10 km race and did it in 56 mins.
Now a month later, I am running 10km’s everyday and have improved my time to by 14 mins
Hi Magwai,
I’m 33. I entered my age into the heart rate monitor and then it calculates your optimum training range – for me this was 140 to 160 bpm.
I found running the 10km on the road really tough on my knees. My current plan is to do most of my training on the bike to improve fitness and hope that it will transfer over to the running.
Congratulations on the race and the 14 minute improvement!
Chris