Team in Training Blog update, week 7!

In which I wax poetic (sort of), about group workouts and how I've been a big fundraising slacker lump.

http://pages.teamintraining.org/los/malibutr11/rachelwells

Look what's arrived!

 That's right. My replacement chest strap for my HRM that Polar sent me.

My old chest strap was a long hard piece of plastic that went across the front of the chest with a thin elastic across the back. This one's softer and wider, and the transmitter snaps onto it for ease of washing and replacement.

At some point during my swim, I forgot I had it on,  it's so very nice and comfy. It lost signal right when I got in the water, but picked it back up and I never got the dreaded 00 after that.

It also came with a hard plastic something that looks like a bike mount for the wrist band. I might use it during a spin class, but God knows I've already got enough crap clipped to Gary's handlebars when I ride, so I'll be keeping the wrist band on my wrist for rides.

This is an excellent example of a company creating customer loyalty with good service. Because of this, Polar have definitely won my loyalty. Yay, Polar!

In other news, it's getting hot around here, and while it's great fun to ride along the beach bike path, I'm having a terrible time getting the sand out of Gary's chain after said beach rides. I'm going to have to switch out his cassette (I'm currently riding on whatever six gear was laying on the table at Bikerowave when I was working on Gary, but I really want to go back to a 7 speed), so when I do that I'll pull the chain off and give it a good scrubbing.

I had one of those chain washer things that Park Tool makes, but it got broken when I moved so I'm back to scrubbing the chain the old fashioned way.

Okay, fine. So I don't hate Polar. I love Polar.

Never let it be said that the squeaky wheel doesn't get greased. Or something like that.

After my bitching and moaning,  I woke up this morning to a message from a very nice rep from Polar offering me a new, improved chest strap for my HRM. It'll be here in a few days.

Now that's customer service. I'm impressed.

I hate my HRM

Several years ago, when I was shopping for a heart rate monitor, I settled on the Polar F6. Mainly for cost reasons, but also because my gym had a workout rewards program that would read that particular monitor (one year later, I got four free personal training sessions because I logged so many workouts).

It's been an annoyance from day one, though. My main issue with it is that it loses signal at least every five minutes, so when I look down to see what my heart rate is, it reads 250 bpm or something.

"Oh, that's great", I think. "My heart's going to explode. Hope I paid my life insurance bill this month."

Then, I look down a minute later and see that my heart rate  now reads 00.

"Awesome. I'm dead. But I'm still running, so that must make me a zombie. Which is kind of cool, but I don't really like brains, so what's a girl to do? Do they make zombie mojitos?"

"Oh, wait... 155. Good to know I'm not dead. Yet."

The older the Polar has gotten, the worse this losing signal thing has become, so now I'm logging workouts like this:

Duration: 1.5 hours. Max heart rate: 240. Average heart rate: 50. Calories burned: 12.

I've replaced both batteries (the one in the wrist band and the one in the chest strap), and have come to the conclusion that it just sucks and I'd love to replace it. Unfortunately, there's no money around here for a new one, so I'm just going to have to deal.

But when I do come into some funds, I want to get one of those fancy HRMs that have a GPS and can balance my checkbook for me. 

DISCLAIMER: I don't drink mojitos, but maybe I would were I a zombie. Who knows?

Did someone send around a memo?

I live near the West LA Veteran's Administration, and that's where I usually do my runs. It's got a nice hill (I hate it when I run it, but it's great for training) and a built in cheering section from the resident veterans ("you go girl!"), plus unsolicited advice on form from the peanut gallery as I wheeze by.

It's lots of fun, which is why I keep going back.

There are normally one or two folks smoking, but for some reason, yesterday was "smoke 'em if you got 'em" day at the VA. Seriously, every single person I ran by had a cigarette. I have enough trouble breathing when my heart rate's at 180 because of that damn hill. I don't need cancer sticks as an additional obstacle.

I began to wonder if there had been some sort of conference call that I'd missed or something. I ended up running on the streets around the VA, where there was less smoke, but no cheering section.

Good for the lungs, bad for the morale.