18. The One Where I Had To Listen To My Body

24 August 2015

I woke up stiff and sore around my hips after yesterday's walk, which was actually, in a very weird way, perfect!  I've been wanting to test out how it felt to run on a really stiff body, because that is most definitely what I'll be doing on days 2 and 3 of the challenge.  I'd planned to do a sub-130 run either today or tomorrow, so I thought it would be perfect to do it as it's not stressful on any part of my body, so it shouldn't affect any recovery, but it's still making myself run on tired legs.

So I hobbled out of bed and tottered off to the gym.  Once I'd climbed on the treadmill and set it to my usual speedy 7.5km per hour, I actually felt amazing!  As soon as I was running all my hip stiffness melted away and I almost immediately got into a nice rhythm which lasted for the first ten minutes or so.  However, my heart rate suddenly climbed up to 138bpm so I had to slow to a walk to get it down again.  As soon as I was walking rather than running I felt like a crunchy creaky old-timer again, with my hips shrieking in protest and my glutes getting in on the action for good measure!  To make it worse, even when I slowed to 4.5kph my heart rate was still up at 134!!  It took me a good couple of minutes to work out that actually there was no way my heart rate was that high, and measure it manually.  As soon as I took a manual reading I realised my Garmin wasn't reading right, so instead I was forced to go by feel with the occasional check either manually or using the treadmill's heart rate monitor (which, to be fair, only required me to clamp my hands onto the cross bar for a few seconds).

Obviously that isn't ideal for a training session that is heart-rate linked, but in a way it was really good for me because it forced me to listen to my body rather than relying on my Garmin.  I knew I could do it to some degree just from experience doing heart-rate linked workouts, but I was slightly impressed with myself because I managed it perfectly!  I made a little prediction in my head every time I checked my heart rate, and I was within a couple of beats every time.  That is fantastic news for me because if it means that if my Garmin does give up the ghost during the run, I'll be able to tell what my heart rate is likely to be regardless (not that it massively matters, but I'd quite like to know if I'm suddenly up at 178 bpm or something equally horrid!).  I can also monitor my cadence by feel, so I feel like now I'm really getting to grips with being in tune with my body - ooooh I might even be one of these runner types some time hahaha.

Other than the little blip at the start when my Garmin was reading strangely (it didn't right itself throughout the workout, but I ignored it after the first time!), I stayed within 130bpm throughout the entire workout!  This is the best I've ever done, and I felt really good after it.

Now I'm off to do some Yin Yoga from YouTube to try and stretch out my tin man body before I hit bed.  I've got a day off running tomorrow and I can't wait - it's going to be a fun plyo workout in the morning and some strength in the afternoon if all goes according to plan (ie, if my boss doesn't load me up with too much work like he did today; honestly, you'd almost think he paid me to be there or something).  I can't wait!