After my fabulous 3 run week 2 weeks ago I did nothing last week and was thwarted by rotten weather and a grippy sofa this week. So as the sun came out today I thought enough was enough and I prised myself into the upright position and sallied forth.
I decided to go for another long, slow run today. 5k? 6k? What k? As I settled into a nice easy pace I decided that since the legs were strong and the puff was willing I would do 8k again. But when I got to the 4k halfway point I just decided to extend it. So one happy woman here - reclaimed 9k!!!!
Written by
Fionamags
Graduate10
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You are so right! I think there is a whole cave full of gremlins that live behind my sofa. Glad to be back on the longer runs though. I will get there!!
Yes you can! You need to believe in yourself. I ran by heart rate a while back and it was such a revelation. So now I do my long runs at an uber slow pace and it is amazing how relaxed and easy it feels. Was getting a bit weary towards the end but still felt as if I could have done a bit more.
Well I have just run 5k, very slowly but steadily and thinking I'd just crack the distance. Very pleased! When you say you ran by heart rate, can you tell me a bit about what you did? I have wondered about having a go at this but at 67 my max heart rate seemed impossibly low!
I did it by accident one day. I was out for a run and somehow shifted to heart rate mode when fumbling with my watch. I set my HR to 180 as the calculation by age is ridiculous for me. (62yrs)So I just kept an eye on my watch and stuck as far as poss within the green zone. It was very, very slow - but once I got the hang of what that pace felt like it was incredible. If you don't have a sports watch then just try slowing down on a run to the point that seems silly. It should feel like you are not even a tiny bit of of breath and very relaxed. Its a bit annoying in a way that my next 10k is going to be a fair bit slower than my first, but apparently this is the way to increase speed in the longer term by building endurance at a slow pace.
I see Jools2020 is doing this too. I don't bother looking at HR now that I've the feel for it though. Sometimes its too hard to get it low - yesterday was hot so i averaged around 160 but it still felt very easy on the puff.
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