Listen to your body...?

[Yesletsgo]

Decided, after much faffing, displacement activity and general procrastination that I was going to run 5k this morning. I’ve got a brand new Garmin Forerunner 45 that I wanted to try or I’d never have stirred myself.

Despite the display showing miles not km (now hopefully corrected) the run went well. I’m conscientious about not overdoing it, repeating ‘I can get to the end of a sentence on one breath’ in order to check up on myself.

They say you should listen to your body. This usually means ‘go on, have a glass of wine and some chocolate.’ Not today, once I got half way through the run mine was saying ‘run faster’. So I did. Paula Radcliffe won’t find my increased pace a threat but it felt pretty good to me.

When I got home I checked my stats. It turns out I was running in Zone 5 for 23 minutes of the 43 minute run. I knew I was making an effort but I still could say my sentence out loud.

So I wonder, should I go slower? Even though I’m enjoying myself by occasionally running faster? Or should I just ignore the numbers and go for it?

For info, my fastest speed was 8.3 km/h, average 7.0 km/h so definitely more tortoise than hare!

[Instructor57 Graduate10]

I wouldn't worry too much about the fact the watch showed zone 5 for 23 minutes !The HR Zones will be based on the MHR of 220 - Age calculation which is not very accurate.

If you are running at a conversational pace then your HR is unlikely to be too high

[Yesletsgo Administrator Graduate10 in reply to Instructor57]

Thanks, I thought that might be the case.

[Frenc Graduate10 60minGraduate]

Well done, I wouldn’t worry about the numbers - I got the same watch fairly recently, and I think it takes a while to settle in, as it were. I did just laugh reading your post - I listened to my body and had a bar of chocolate about 10 minutes ago. Friday night and all that! All the best 😊🏃‍♀️🏃🏻.

[Yesletsgo Administrator Graduate10 in reply to Frenc]

These bodies, leading us astray 😂

[Mormor1 Graduate10]

My ' listen to your body ' told me to stay in bed rather than be pounding the turf this morning! so I did.... There is always tomorrow.... And all the tomorrows to come, in which to run...

[Yesletsgo Administrator Graduate10 in reply to Mormor1]

Your body knows best 😁

[Hidden]

As for the HR zones, if you used the preset ones they are probably not correct. You can either get a test at a center to get your HR zones (which will need to be repeated once every while as they do change). Or you can find online how to test yourself. That will give more accurate zones.

[Yesletsgo Administrator Graduate10 in reply to Hidden]

Thank you