I had a pretty awesome run this morning. It was my 10k’er (9.64km really) from home to work. I wore shorts and I don't know, but I think i ran better because either it was the shorts or it was Monday. I’ve said this before that Mondays are great because you’ve rested well and running on the next day is more explosive and I don't get as fatigued as say Wednesdays or Fridays. Maybe it was the shorts. See, the theory with the shorts is that I felt more comfortable because I was cooler and didn’t overheat. Dunno probably because its Monday but I felt great running in shorts. Its still cold like the friggen arctic but when you’re running, you don't really feel the cold – you feel the heat, that's for sure.

I had a great run because I paced myself and I felt that I was going at a good strong rate, not too fast that It hurts and is tough and uncomfortable but strong enough to feel that this is a good, fast-ish pace and I’m enjoying it – got to enjoy it, man.

There is something animalistic about taking strain that is so appealing to me. Maybe its testosterone, truly. Look, I’m no masochist or maybe I am but the endorphins and the courage, grit, determination required to push longer and harder and further towards something you’ve tasked yourself with – like yes I’m going to do it, and I’ve not done it yet so keep going until you do – is so encouraging and maybe its man thing. Exercising strain is a adaption to dealing with strain.

I have a weird little mind which is way stronger than I am because sometimes I’ll just decide, “Yes, ok we’ll be doing this now” – like for instance If I’m awake at the crack at dawn, I casually say something like, are we running later or not? Then another part of me would be like, well don't decide now, its not even close to that time yet. Then I’m like ok fine, and concentrate on the tasks at hand, and then when its crunch time – time to run or not? That’s when my little fighter mind, starts telling me what I need to do in order to be better. Its that little fighter than makes me.

I don’t know whats happening right now with my heart rate monitor but its again not picking up a heart-rate. Its actually more a nuisance because I have to pack it each time and sometimes I forget it and then I have to put it on(sometimes going back to my apartment after leaving and remembering I forgot it). Anyway. here is todays superb run:

Analysis

First, it was good time, sub 45 mins is always a good time – 43:59 moving time over 9.7km. My average is about 45 mins normally I think.

Was the 2nd fastes pace on this route – that shows that feeling good and running well goes hand in hand. What interesting is that my heart rate (seems to have appeared in the stats) says that my heart rate is at its highest this run than other instances of this run recently. So that means I must have worked a little harder but dealt with it well because it didn’t impact me as ‘tough’ or ‘hard’. A good run can feel easy and it can ‘be’ tough but you might not feel that. cool.

I had a 4:31/km on average which is as good in my books. My fastest is 4:25. So not bad.

My recovery time is 10hs.

Here is an interesting trend:

my heart rate is pretty constant even going up a gradient, however, I really put on the breaks when coming down, so much so that my heart rate drops.And while my pace going up the hill is relatively stable, doing down my pace fluctuates in large ways –stop start, stop-start, stop-start:

Oh and I’ve travelled 809.1 km in my shoes – they recommend I should change them every 700km. Am I going to do that?

No.

I’ve been running a lot. This is a good thing. My latest invention is the gentle ‘plod’ style running which I convert to when my legs are really tired. This is instead of the ‘tempo’ style I usually run which is quite fast, though I get fatigued quite quickly with it. Also, when running with the usual mode(tempo), I tend to activate most of the muscles in my leg and particular my calves – because I run on my toes and move my legs quite quickly. With the ‘plod’ style, I slow down and don’t move my leg so fast and instead of quickly adjusting my weight from one leg to the other in mid stride – I focus heavily on each stride and the weight slowly switches from side to side with each ‘plod’.

Anyway that's my technical answer for fatigued legs. I also tend to run a lot longer.

Yesterday I did my weekly run from home into the office and it wasn’t as tough as the previous week. I did it in average time – 45 mins:

According to my stats, I suffered just a much as last week but I can tell you, I didn’t.  And my pace was about the same too. I guess it was just a mental thing combined with how I “felt”.

I’ve also cut back a lot in terms of total running. I used to average 80+ km per week before my holiday and then after I got injured I obviously decreased and while decreasing I’ve upped by gym training in its place and I kinda like the change of focus. So now I’m running about 40-45 Km’s a week – about half. I think that’s OK.

I had a real tough run this morning – it was a real test of my fortitude. My body was aching in low-tempo mode. I slept so well today and I slept in and I was so lazy because of that and I think basically I never got out of it. That being said, I pushed through! When looking at my time, I completed the run in good time: 44 minutes which is bang on line with my best times! I actually got a personal achievement on this run. Can you believe it!

For some reason my heart rate details haven't shown up on strava but that's OK. Looking at the movescount web page shows that I ran on average at about 4’37 min/km which is pretty fine by me considering how tought it felt just moving today . Well actually looking at the stats closer, I was running ‘hard’ – basically in zone 3 for 40/45 mins. That certainly rightly represents how I felt.

And looking back at yesterday’s run from the office – it was pretty quick too: