Consolidation Run 8 / Fartleks

[Jools2020]

Well, that was fun! 🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️👍

It was humid out there this morning. It felt like there is a storm a-coming! My breathing knew it. I have mild asthma and I notice it when it’s humid. I wasn’t able to go as fast as I would have liked in the ‘speed up’ parts. But - I just accepted it and did the best I could.

I’ve set my heart rate to be higher and the zones worked more like I expected them to. I used them to make sure that I was in Zone 3 before speeding up again.

I liked the freedom of this; to be able to decide myself where to jog to and where to speed up to.

I spotted that there is a segment on my planned route - only a short one, but I made sure I was running in that section to give a good account of myself! Competitive Julia kicks in once more 😂. When I got home and looked at the stats I was very pleased to see that my time for that segment put me in the top 10! Then I realised that there ARE only 10 women on the leaderboard! 😂 Still, I was positioned at No. 6, faster than my daughter-in-law, who went out for a run when she was visiting last September. I must tell her 😊 (She probably didn’t even notice it!)

All in all I was pleased with this run and enjoyed it, in spite of the warmth and humidity. 🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️

[Scout37 Graduate]

Sounds like all is going well!

And all this teccy stuff from the woman who, not long ago, said she had no idea about heart rates!!

Seriously though, good to see you're finding a great way forward. Must be odd, a bit, after graduation. X

[Jools2020 Graduate in reply to Scout37]

Yes, it is a bit odd. I thought that I just needed to keep trying to run further and faster, and that’s what I started to do. But now I realise that’s not the way to go, I was pushing myself too hard. So I’m mixing it up a bit! You’ll see my pace is slower on this run! I was jogging really slowly - then speeding up for a while. It wasn’t about the pace at all - it was fun! On Saturday I’m going for a long (about an hour) really slow run. Looking forward to it already 🙂 💕

[Instructor57 Graduate]

Nice one Jools ! 😁

Good fun these Fartleks'aren't they !

Glad you enjoyed it .

It's nice to have the freedom whilst still improving. 😁👍

[Jools2020 Graduate in reply to Instructor57]

They are good fun, I loved the freedom to decide when to jog and when to run! You gave me the inspiration to have a go 👍

[Instructor57 Graduate in reply to Jools2020]

Thank you Julia, 😁👍

It's just nice to mix things up a bit, and mix it up the way we want without too much structure 😁

[SammiN3 Graduate]

Well done. I haven't tried fartleks yet, thought I'd get bored after c25k but there's so much to try!

[Jools2020 Graduate in reply to SammiN3]

Thanks - yes, you’re right! Sometimes it seems difficult to decide 🙂

[Reggit Graduate]

Nice one! I’m proper struggling to get to 30 minutes now (about 5 weeks after graduation), don’t know if it’s the heat or humidity.

I have swapped tech though, gone to Garmin instead of Fitbit. That tells me I’m working too hard (never could manage slow running) and need more rest- run every third day instead of every other day. Got to obey the watch 😂

[Jools2020 Graduate in reply to Reggit]

Thanks! Certainly the heat and humidity are factors. Maybe slow down a bit?

I’m interested - how is your watch telling you you’re working too hard?

[Reggit Graduate in reply to Jools2020]

It shows aerobic and anaerobic effort for each tracked exercise. It showed I’d maxed out on the aerobic score and advised that can be counter productive.

I’ve changed routes and the current one has quite a long gradual climb. That always finishes me off! The joys of living in a hilly area 😂

[Jools2020 Graduate in reply to Reggit]

Ok I get it. I live in the fens, so no hills at all!

[Tinytears60 Graduate]

Well done for getting out Julia... 👏👏👏

Pace isn’t that slow either!.. cut yourself some slack please 🙏🏻

You went out and tried something new! I call that a success! 💕

Sounds like fun...

I’m going to have a go at these... Ian mentioned them the other day and whilst the weather is like this it’s the perfect time I think... otherwise the competitive Annie in me would get disheartened...

it’s great we can try all these different things isnt it ....

how far have we all come!

C25k is a magical little plan... worked it’s magic on us all

[Jools2020 Graduate in reply to Tinytears60]

Yes it has! It was fun. Give them a try, it was great to do something a bit different! 🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️👍

[MontyMooDog Graduate]

Great run there and nice to mix it up a bit. My run was a mix up too but will post later as really busy just now👍😂😀

[Jools2020 Graduate in reply to MontyMooDog]

Thanks, it was a struggle to run faster due to the humidity. I feel the new maximum heart rate setting is more like it. I set it to 165. I’m now getting more like the results I would expect to see in the different zones. Zone info for this run: 4% in Zone 5; 58% in Zone 4; 33% in Zone 3 and 5% in Zone 2.

I was slow jogging in Zone 3 and increasing pace for the runs. Then slowing up to get my heart rate back to Zone 3, which sometimes took a while, before increasing again for the next running part.

It was fun doing this!

[MontyMooDog Graduate in reply to Jools2020]

That looks much more like it 👍

[Jools2020 Graduate in reply to MontyMooDog]

Much more like what I expect to see, certainly from the run this morning 👍My heart rate took a while to recover from the speed bursts, but I guess that’s the whole point of it, training it to recover more quickly.

[MontyMooDog Graduate in reply to Jools2020]

👍