Heart rate woes

When an otherwise active person trades in their shoes for a spot on the couch, the first thing to go is aerobic fitness. And boy, does it go. It only takes a week or to for the inevitable backslide to begin, and every subsequent week makes a return to activity that much harder.

So with only a handful of miles logged since my October races, I knew January would be more work than fun.

Today marked my second run back on a program; this year's focus is Grandma's Marathon at the end of June, and my chosen training plan calls for 18 weeks of serious training. That gives me until mid-February to ensure that I have a strong enough base that I can jump directly into a four-day, 19-mile week. Last year's program was a lighter one, calling for only three days of running (with ample cross-training), so this new plan is going to be a major step up.

February 15th. My calendar is marked. The real stuff begins.

My gym has a 1/10 mile track, and I knocked out a 2-miler there on Thursday. The run felt good, very possible, so today, I stepped up to a 5K. The track was clogged with New Years Resolutioners, so I opted for the treadmill.

This is the part where I remind myself that progress isn't linear. Progress comes in fits and starts, and today was nothing like Thursday. I never quite clicked into a rhythm, and I found myself winded and walking frequently. Feeling a bit amiss, I checked my heart rate. And I checked it again, because I didn't believe it.

Within a mile, despite walk breaks, I found myself over 170bpm. Before my second mile, I was peaking at 188bpm. I wasn't setting any new speed records; on the contrary, I was shooting for my old, slow, reliable pace of last year. Today, that pace was too much. My 5K run became a 5K mostly-walk as I tried to keep my heart rate under 150.

It was humbling to spend so much time walking, but ultimately worthwhile. Instead of turning out the 36-minute 5K I was expecting from my current fitness level, performed at a moderately-hard effort, I turned out that same relative effort for the better part of 47 minutes. It's hard to be ashamed of sweating for longer than I was intending.

Running by effort is the name of the game when it comes to training. Today was a great reminder of that.