My Personal Trainer

I love my personal trainer. I, like many runners, don't have a human personal trainer. I use a Garmin Forerunner 305 to track my distances, monitor my heart rate and watch my pace of running as I continue to train for these races that are coming up. I can come to my training appointments at any time, and my trainer only yells at me if my heart rate is too high or low!! It's funny that it has probably gotten to an unhealthy level now, in that I probably can't go out for a run, if I don't have my watch on to train. Honestly the true fun begins when I get back home after my runs. I am able to download all types of cool information about my run to my computer and I can analyze how well my run went. I guess I am a data geek when it comes down to it. What a lot of people don't realize about the Forerunner is that you can customize workouts, not only for running, but for indoor workouts also. About 8 months ago, I decided that there was something more that I could do with this watch than just run. I, along with my business partner Mike, decided to bring the idea of doing heart-rate based circuit training programs at home, using this great piece of equipment, by setting up specialized programs using the software that came with the watch and downloading it to the watch every 4-6 weeks for patients. We decided to call this exercise program Therafit, which is fitness based on therapeutic exercises. Therapeutic exercises are the type of exercises that we do in our field of physical therapy to get patients stronger and fitter, when returning from an injury. We have over 50 clients that have signed up for the Therafit program, and we have had tremendous success with people managing and losing weight and improving their overall conditioning. The neat part is that all of our clients download their information to us on a weekly basis, and me being a data geek, analyzes their information and give them tips on how to modify their home exercise program in order for them to achieve their goals.
Well enough about that.... Yesterday I decided to go out for a run after I finished my last patient at around 8 pm. Seven Oaks, which is where our clinic is located, is a beautiful place to run and roads are lighted and not too many cars are around. I planned on running 5-6 miles, but about 10 minutes into the run, I went from feeling tired to having that typical euphoric feeling while running and enjoying my music on the Ipod. I did a little over 7.5 miles, and completed a tempo run. A tempo run is basically when you run fairly slow for the 1st part of your run (usually the 1st mile), pick up the pace for the mid part of your run, and then cool down for the last leg of the run (usually a mile or so). It is quite challenging, so when you finish, you always feel proud of yourself. Here is a peek of the run:
P.S. If you click on view activity, you will be directed to a site where you can see all the neat information that my watch recorded during my run (how fast or slow I ran each mile, my average heart rate for each mile, etc.)