Afternoon Run - 8km (keeping it easy with Zone 2)

dannewton just finished a 8.4km run, that lasted for 63 minutes.
This run helped dannewton burn 649.0 calories.

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Description from Strava: And another slow, heart-rate focused plod.

I did this session previously on Monday, where I focused on keeping my heart between 140-150 beats per minute (bpm). Why those numbers. Well I was using my garmin watch and it picked those numbers seemingly at random.

I decided to do a little research and after 3 hours watching heart rate running on youtube, I picked my own numbers that were more specific to me. Essentially, I was trying to find out the numbers that would give me a suitable target to aim for for Zone 2 (easy running).

After a frustrating 30 minutes I managed to add those to to both strava and my watch to replace the generic numbers they used.

With a new target of 134bpm to 146bpm, I set off for the run today.

It was quite hard to keep checking the watch every 20 seconds to see what my heart rate said, but I was mostly successful in keeping it in zone 2 as you can see in the graph below

Wednesday Run

Strava source

A couple of times I strayed over into 150's territory, but I just slowed the pace down and the heart rate soon slowed down as well.

At times I felt I was going ridiculously slow, but when I compared tonight's results compared the the results 2 days ago on Monday, I was in for a surprise.

Compare the 2 graphs. Tonights session above, Mondays session below, what do you see?

On Wednesdays run I was obviously much better at keeping the heart rate low, but when you look at the overall time spent running, there was actually very little difference. Monday was quicker by less than 60 seconds.

The other thing is the relative effort in the top right corner of each. Tonight was '17', Monday's slightly quicker time was '75'. I was working considerably harder for a tiny little gain in time.

Monday Run

Strava source

I really didn't expect that

I keep going on about how running should be easy, should feel relaxed... have I really been trying too hard all this time? Is there something to this 'easy' zone 2 running lark?

The jury is still out, but I do think it is worth taking the time to stick with this for a little while. Proponents of the Mafatone Method say it takes 3 months of slow, low heart rate running before you see an increase in performance, and I think its worth giving this a go.

In other news, I managed to finally do some strength exercises last night. It was only short, but a few sets of pressups, crunches, squats and calf raises did the job. And I definitely felt it this morning haha!

Tomorrow will be a short (30 minute run), and then more strength exercises on Friday. Saturday will of course be the standard long run, so I guess I will check back in then with an update on my running progress :-)

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If you would like to check out this activity on strava you can see it here:
https://www.strava.com/activities/9660756252

About the Athlete: Living in the UK, I am an intermittent Runner, but always striving for more consistency. When I'm not training I can be found photographing insects or listening to really loud angry music (which is the best type of music obviously!)

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