Admittedly I'm totally winging this running thing. It's going OK—I think—I'm covering the required distances, and in a reasonable time. I'm not one for plans though, I just run about the place as and when it fits into life. I do think about it a lot though because I do want to improve, and one thing I wondered as I finished a medium distance run yesterday is how should I actually *feel* at the end of a training run? For example, I was a bit fatigued in the legs, but not at all out of breath. I know my heart rate was high (always is when I run, doesn't seem to matter how fast or slow I go) but went back to resting rate pretty quickly. My vo2 max estimate stayed at an apparently decent level, for what it's worth. But overall, the run did not impact on me physically in any way apart from taking an hour out of my life. Is this efficient, or am I being too casual with my runs? Am I overthinking this, and does it even matter as long as I'm out there running?!
The various websites and things go on and on about all the different metrics—timings and pace and cadence and numbers and blah—but none of them seem to talk about the more intuitive things, about how you should feel post-run. Like you can do more, or like you've pushed it quite hard and need a break? If I'm not out of breath should I be trying harder?
So, I thought I'd go straight to the horse's mouth, as it were, and ask you what you think /experience yourselves