Week 5 run 2

[Stentrunner]

Completed this morning. Two runs of eight minutes wasn’t as tough as I feared, and I’m finally getting it into my head to start off slowly. My usual route is downhill at first, so it’s very tempting to set a brisk pace.

Finding that iSmoothRun will update me through my earbuds every minute, with pace, cadence and heart rate, has really helped. The last run of every session is uphill, so I really suffer if I haven’t started gently, especially today with 8 minutes mostly uphill.

I realised I’m getting heart rate too high with this uphill stretch at the end of every session - often 140+ or 85% of MHR, so today I managed to get that down to the mid-130s, partly from starting slow, partly by really cutting stride length uphill, trying to maintain cadence but accepting I need to go very slowly.

I’d really like to get it down to the 120s, but I think that’s only going to happen on the flat, or maybe as I slowly improve my CV fitness. Still, it’s a far cry from struggling from my armchair to the kitchen in April!

Feeling pleased, counting my blessings.

Wondering about 20 minutes running on Wednesday...

[Leosmit Graduate]

Great progress so far - bring on that 20 minutes! Main tip - keep it slow.

[nowster Graduate]

Don't worry about the 20 minutes. The overall session in run 3 is shorter than run 2 by a minute.