Running pace vs heart rate: an anxious newbie's perspective

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Spring begins, and with it the running season. Many newbies will take to the streets for the first time and discover new possibilities for themselves and their bodies. How to train without suffering, and how to cope with your consciousness?

It's very difficult to start running. Absolutely everyone knows this, because almost every one of us began to do it. Many stopped at the first or second training session.

Starting to run means experiencing unpleasant sensations, suffering. But as Japanese marathon writer Haruki Murakami said, pain is inevitable, and suffering is everyone's personal choice., a practicing psychotherapist from hot Rio de Janeiro, where everyone runs, of course, in white pants, in this guest article talks about the inner struggle with oneself during the race and shares a life hack on how to run for pleasure. Heart rate running is not a discovery for an experienced athlete, but many beginners do not understand that the main thing in training is not speed, but heart rate and duration. They describe the running load.

I have been running for less than a year and a half with three to four workouts a week. Already there were four breaks for a month (back jammed; tired; tired; bronchitis). I haven't run my first half marathon yet, let alone a marathon. Behind the back so far there are five races for the top ten, one for 12 kilometers and one for 15 kilometers. My short-term goal is to run 10 kilometers at least a second faster than an hour. I have never succeeded. Moreover, until today there has not been a single race when I did not have to move to a step in the middle of the distance.

We are talking about "fun starts" in the glorious city of Rio de Janeiro, where, usually at a temperature of 30 ° C, sweat from other athletes begins to irrigate you already at the second kilometer of the distance. Here, every two to three weeks on Sundays, collective runs are held, which can only be called a holiday: beer tastings are held in the starting area, and the run program usually includes both running and walking (a walk with beer and collective selfies). No atmosphere of competition or tense overcoming. It would seem, why be nervous?

In general, I am a psychotherapist, not an athlete. Especially deeply this truth is experienced by me about the sixth kilometer. The first five I run fast. As my first coach bequeathed, "start fast, run fast and finish even faster." On the first kilometer, you usually manage to keep up with the pace of your dreams, zigzagging and overtaking mothers with strollers, taking pictures for memory against the backdrop of the starting arch and runners with selfie sticks. The second and third kilometers pass exactly. On the fourth, I start to fizzle out, but I force myself to run fast. On the fifth, there is a clouding: looking at the clock, I clearly understand that I will not be able to run faster and the record for 10 kilometers does not shine for me. “Oh, you can still manage to set a personal record at 5 kilometers,” the sophisticated consciousness prompts, and I accelerate with all my strength.

On the sixth kilometer, reckoning overtakes - powerlessness and a wave of disappointment. Of course, I do not set a record, because I ran quickly from the start, but still I saved a little strength per ten. Disappointment gives way to an attack of self-pity, and usually a gamut of bodily symptoms begins behind it: tingling in the side, thirst, lethargy in the legs and various other "reluctance" … Only the knowledge that dogs are walking here stops me from lying on the grass. I take a step, and then run for an infinitely long time to the finish line, encouraging myself that they will be given a medal and a family with the keys to the house will be waiting there.

In the course of the movement, I invent all sorts of different reasons why I should run. But I devalue them myself, because the record will never happen.

This is the inner picture of running at a pace with the intention of breaking your personal best. I associate the loss of strength precisely with the fact that the attitude “I must run and win” does not motivate me at all. Competition and duty do not motivate people with severe anxiety at all. On the contrary, they significantly increase anxiety, because together with "I should" turn on "suddenly I can not" and "it seems that it does not work." This trio demotivates the self-doubting runner so that there is no question of any pleasure from the race.

Today, for the first time, it happened differently. I see two prerequisites for changes: I changed my trainer and began to monitor the dynamics by heart rate (Garmin Forerunner 225), as the new trainer advised. He turned out to be my running fairy godmother, against his background my first trainer looks like a lazy apathetic jellyfish.

A week before the 12 km race of the local Athenas series, I received a letter from the coach saying:

12 km race, and this time you are not just running against the clock, but you are running to the end and without stopping, and for this, control your heart rate (turn on the alerts on the clock) in order to run not higher (but not lower) than the 4th zone pulse. Think of this race as an effective workout not only for your body, but also for your mind. According to my calculations, at this pace you will not only run to the finish line without stopping, but at the same time you will feel more or less normal.

I have to admit, I’m slowing down to master all the features of my running chronometer, and just learned how to set alerts just a week ago. It turned out that running according to the pulse means stopping passing the exam, stopping demanding the impossible from oneself, running in a relaxed manner (which does not mean slowly).

Somewhere in the middle of the distance, it dawned on me that the heart rate was adapting to the load, and I slowly slowed down so as not to go beyond the boundaries of the fourth zone. This meant that there would definitely not be records and there should not be - what a relief! Comparing my condition on my typical 10 kilometers of running at a pace, I find that running at a heart rate means running smoothly, running softly and very confidently.

The sixth kilometer flew flawlessly, as well as the seventh, eighth and so on. After the fifth kilometer mark began to flicker very quickly, and I can say that in the internal time space it was the fastest race in my little practice. In the process, there was time to shake your head, admire the ocean, look at other runners. For about 1, 5 kilometers, I ran after the "horse" - my grandfather, in whose pockets something funny clicked, resembling the clatter of hooves. It was even a pity to overtake him, but otherwise I would have left the fourth heart rate zone.