And I love a hyperbole.
Seriously, today I ran with Kathy, and thank goodness she likes me a lot, because running with me was AWFUL. A run that usually takes us just about 60 minutes - it's 5.5 miles - took 75 minutes. Given some time out for the street lights, that's about a 12.5 minute mile.
However, I realized I was making a mistake. I was thinking that I needed to cap my heart rate at 138, but actually, 138 is the middle of the range I need to stay in - it's 68% of my max. I can safely go as high as 75% during this part of training - so that gives me up to 152. And that makes perfect sense - Maffetone's formula puts me at either 149 or 154, depending on whether I give myself 5 extra beats per minute because I have been exercising for two years and making progress (the reason I waver here on whether I deserve those extra beats is that I kind of think I would have made progress no matter what I did, since I came from absolutely nothing).
So 152 is the new cap, but the target HR I will work to maintain is still 138. It seems reasonable, and doing that will allow me to run slowly, but reasonably on flat ground. I'm sure I'll still have to walk hills, but I can deal with that.
Today, with the cap at 138, I had to walk teensy hills I couldn't even feel, but obviously something in my body did.
I tried to go back to dieting yesterday, and yesterday was good. This morning I went to the grocery store and stocked up on healthy foods for the fridge in my office. Then I ran an errand for my husband, picked up lunch for him (and a reasonable lunch for me, too), but also a piece of apple cake for him...and then I proceeded to eat it. BLAH. Why did I do that? (Although it was way yummy.)
One step forward, two steps back.
Nah, two steps forward, one step back. I'm still on the right path and moving ahead. I hope.
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3 comments:
We're almost twins. My At is +/- 148.
Have I mentioned that this sucks?
Yeah, I think I recall something about you saying this sucks. And you're right.
On my long run, I can never keep my heart rate below 150 going up those hills. I eventually just quit trying. I'm happy if I'm in my target zone for 80% of my run. Then again, I'm just wingin it too, but my average heart rate is usually right where I want it.
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