The learning continues… sometimes it takes longer than it possibly should to add 2 + 2, but there are so many variables it doesn’t always seem so straightforward.
I did a couple of 25m runs with my 13yo son this week who is in week 7 of the program. I’m so proud of him - he just presses start on Strava and he’s off, no faffing, no other tech. We have been talking as we go, which, while lovely, is an additional thing to manage and cranks up the difficulty a notch.
I have had a couple of failed attempts using the HR monitor. First time I had to take my watch off and it didn’t reconnect when I put it back on, second time the monitor fell off and I couldn’t be bothered to bra-flash the world tightening the strap.
So today is the first HR monitor run where I felt I could compare the stats, ie., it stayed put, I was by myself, and ran a comparable time of 30m.
I think there were a couple of blips where the watch and the monitor had a disagreement (lost connection), but the monitor won out.
Once it was established that the monitor was in fact connected, I switched the watchface screen so it just showed HR and decided to try to keep my HR below the arbitrary number of 130bpm.
It felt fine for a 3k or so, but the last km was effortful, and the critical/negative inner voice was telling me that this ‘should feel easy’. I was trying to tell it to bugger off but I don’t think I quite succeeded, and while I finished the run cranking up the pace for the last 200m (and feeling a little bit nauseous as a result), I felt slightly despondent about the fact my perceived effort was a mismatch with my HR.
Was I horribly unfit? Was there some psychological block going on?
I had forgotten an obvious fact - I had cranked my max HR up to 196 on the Garmin setting as that is what the faulty wrist sensors were indicating it was. When I readjust the max HR to the standard formula of 220-48 = 172, my ‘easy’ zone 2 HR range is 103-120. So today I was running in ‘threshold’ zone 3 for quite a bit of the time. I can’t work out exactly how long because the Garmin doesn’t adjust the charts retrospectively.
So the last km, run at a 6:45m/km pace, was not ‘easy’ - which it wouldn’t be, in zone 3! It should feel… ‘comfortably hard’
Anyway, comparisons… (drumroll)
Without With HR monitor
Time 30:32 m 30:03 m
Distance 4.02 km 4.2 km
Ave HR 162 bpm 123 bpm
Ave pace 7:36 m/km. 7:10 m/km
Effort ‘Hard’ ‘Moderate’
Now, I know this comparison has as many holes in it as a jumper that moths have been partying in for a year, but I do draw from it these conclusions:
A) The wrist sensor HR doesn’t work
B) I am getting fitter
That’ll do, for now!
Oh, by the way - you may remember my aversion to the pristine white trail shoes I ordered. Well, I bought some dye and they are now… (drumroll) pale green/blue.
Perfect ! 
Must be my week for getting stood up 😂
Does it get easier?
Getting to know my lungs!! Must be a couple of flabby sacks
Trying to get my strength back after lung Cancer 
Right where do I get my badge :-D
