The revelation comes at the end.
So I bought myself a fitness watch a month ago as a birthday present to me and I've been using it track my running distance, speed, heart rate, pace etc. Since then I found out that when I'm running, my heart rate is consistently in the 180s or around 190 bpm, which is scary high. I didn't give it much though in the beginning but the bright red line in the graph was starting to freak me out a little so this week I researched if it was dangerous to have such a high heart rate.
While I am, of course, not a physician and I don't think my knowledge is flawless - it turns out it's not necessarily dangerous unless you start getting nauseous, dizzy or otherwise sick. I had none of those complaints, but several of these sources also mentioned that extreme bpms such as mine don't actually contribute much to aerobic fitness, it just makes it ridiculously hard to keep up your exercise/pace/motivation/EVERYTHING. So I decided to try a technique that reportedly worked well - slowing down.
IannodaTruffe & Oldfloss yes I can hear you thinking, "THAT'S WHAT WE'VE BEEN SAYING ALL ALONG" - but dear reader, it is actually true. Take it from a cynic who thought she was already running at snail pace and couldn't possibly go any slower - guess what: YOU CAN. My running today was just about as fast as my brisk walk, and my distance decreased by about 1km, but my heart rate averaged 155, my breathing evened out (4 steps:1 inhale/exhale, whereas before 2 steps:1 inhale/exhale) and I even managed some nose breathing, and after 30 mins I felt like I could have done another 30. I'll stick with this pace now, however slow I may be - I don't have to prove to myself that I can go faster, because I know I can, but I do need to stay in the aerobic zone if I want to improve my fitness "in the long run".