A more relaxed run with BPM being the target

After my brutal mid-day run that I did earlier this week I needed time to recover. A big part of my exercise regimen is that I always focus on doing activities that I don't loathe and therefore will not shy away from doing it again in the future. I made a mistake with my mid-day run and that was the most brutal thing that I have attempted in quite some time. It was a serious deviation from my normal routine and I shouldn't be doing things like that.

I took a 1 day break before going jogging again but on this next time out I decided beforehand that I definitely wasn't going to be chasing a particular pace like I had done the previous time. This time I was going to focus simply on keeping a zone 3 heart rate and never dropping out of zone 2. I pre-planned to walk some of this, and walk I ended up doing.

These "runs" are still accomplishing quite a lot and I kind of look at it as maintenance runs. There is data out there that suggests that this sort of jogging is very good for endurance but I'm not really sold on that just yet. Often I feel like that sort of scientific discovery ends up coming out merely so influencers and people selling supplements have something new to talk about. If it is based in fact that is great, but I refuse to believe it when someone says that walking is somehow going to improve your overall fitness more than jogging is going to. Bullshit.

This run was actually kind of enjoyable and I have my tunes to thank for that. Spotify is the only app that I pay for and I totally think it is worth it. As someone who was on the front lines of piracy I find it amazing that someone finally changed the game to the point where I am willing to pay for something that I really could get for free. Make it convenient and people will pay for it.

For some reason I just thought about how Madonna and a few other ultra-wealthy snobs rallied to try to fight against streaming music saying that it was destroying creativity. What they really were saying is that they weren't getting paid millions upon millions of dollars anymore even though if you look at Madonna's music and who is credited with actually writing the music, almost all of the time it isn't her.

Anyway, let's stick with the run for now

I wasn't setting any records with this run but the end result was exactly what I was looking for. When I was done I was reasonably tired, but not absolutely knackered like I was 2 days prior when I did a midday heat run that honestly, should never be done by anyone. This run took place in the evening and even though I had to contend with a great many more people, it was a lot better. When I was feeling tired or saw that my heart rate was getting high I just stopped running, then when I got to the lower zone 3 or upper zone 2 I would run again. There wasn't any real system. Just make a 5k or more and get it done in however much time it takes. This isn't that tough to do and as I have shown many times before, if you are doing this for calorie burn it doesn't really seem to matter how fast you get it done, the burn is the same and the only difference is the time it takes.

I think I will focus on more days like this one because unlike my overheated run previously done, this one doesn't stick out in my mind as being something that I would hate to have to do again.

It is a little bit frustrating to not notice immediate improvement but I just need to think back to when I could barely run a single km without desperately needing to stop. That makes me feel pretty good when I now know that I can do 5, 10, 15 km without too much difficulty. The problem is just that I keep running out of water.