After sitting out my runner's knee on the injury bench for twelve whole days I took the knee out for a trial run at the weekend. Stuck to a very easy 5k (of which more in a minute), wearing a knee support and iced it for a good half hour when I got home...
... and it was fine the next day. Had another go yesterday, still fine and then this evening, after spin I fancied a bit of fresh air, or failing that, stagnant muggy air, so went for another easy run. 6k this time. Am sitting with ice pack as I write this and feel fantastic.
During my off-time I read a couple of books about heart zone training and the whole slower training concept, and was much intrigued by it. It makes a lot of sense on paper certainly. When I was doing the programme I really struggled with my breathing until I slowed my pace right down, at which point everything seemed t click into place, so this sounded right up my running trail. So I calculated my Max heart rate and measured my resting and waking rates and did all the calculations (Karvonen method for those who are interested in such things) and finally strapped on my heart rate monitor (to the huge amusement of my elder son, who. on seeing me in lycra shorts and hrm strap announced "Daddy's wearing girl pants and a bra!") and have religiously kept to 70% on my easy runs.
What a revelation it has been. I have had to slow right down again. Particularly going out in the heat. My 70% figure is 143bpm and it feels like sub walking pace. People walking their dogs are passing me. My time for 5k has increased from 33.30 to 36 mins, and that was at my "slow pace" before. When I was still hammering away on the programme I was hitting 5k in W8 in 28 mins. Although I was gasping, wheezing, dying and thinking only of how long before I could stop. Whereas now I could quite happily converse, am not breathing terribly hard and am disappointed when I have to stop. This evening I could have happily carried on, but only stopped because I did not want to overdo it.
I am going to give it another week or so of just short easy runs to ease the knee back in before bringing any hillwork/speed days back into the equation, but I am quite sold on this heart zone thing so far.
Interestingly I wore it during my spin session just to see what the numbers were, and was surprised to see the opposite in terms of effort: for what is a 'High Intensity' workout, my rate was not getting much over 75% until the final 12 minute standing hill climb, and even then it only briefly pushed 85%. All this running is making spin easy I reckon. Or, perhaps more likely after a couple of weeks rest I am a bit fresher. Unfortunately I made the mistake of mentioning this to the instructor and he is going to load my resistance up an extra turn and a half next time in retaliation.
Heart rate zones and 25min run
FAQ POST…..IS MY HEART RATE TOO HIGH?
Starting the week on a PB... 
Back on the road!
