how's the heart doing? Need a new challenge...

Pretty much every book written on exercise in the last 10 years will draw on sports psychology and say that there is a clear link between what you're thinking and/or feeling depending on your psychological bent...

I'm no different.

If I feel crap I run crap, Ron Hill (the man, the legend http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Hill) says that if you start a run you think will be poor then often it'll become average and sometimes it'll good and occasionally it'll become great... And he's right... Apart from sometimes being a GUCH runner other things kick in...

A comparison of the 2 runs last week shows this... a 5km PB in a time I've been hunting for a while a run where I knew I was running hard and working all of my body well, and it flowed. My running partner for the day even commented that it looked smooth. I hit the marks, 1km flat out, 250m recovery walk, another 1km flat out, 250m walk, 1km flat out, 300m (I skipped the the top of the hill;-)) and then run it out, up the slope, cross the road, dodge the council workers and flat out towards the pub...

And boy did it feel good:-) (and no there were no congratulatory pints!)

Saturday was a hot and humid day, not my ideal conditions (for new readers I'm a "chunky runner") but I was still riding on the high from Tuesday, and went out for the 5miler I often do. And it didn't feel good from the start...

My legs felt grumpy, my back miserable and my knee tired... However, they're normal running things for me, so I slowed down a touch and tried to keep going, which is when the shoulder said "hello" and twitched... again nothing new... but its a twitch on my left shoulder... which immediately makes me more body aware...

A twitch here, with a dull ache there, and the little demon on my shoulder starts saying how's the heart doing... The stats run through my head 80% of a runner's energy is thermoregulation, how's the heart doing, you're pumping 8 pints around at 160bpm, how's the heart doing... and why has my knee not woken up yet...

And then I hit the trees, the nice cool trees... oh no, the horrid humidity causing trees... the sweat doesn't work as well anymore... there's little breeze.... and heart rate nudges up, how's the heart doing... and I say bugger this and start walking...

And after that, it was grumble a couple of hundred metres run... walk a lot... get irritated with myself... try and run a bit more...

One of the many things I learnt running the marathon this year was one bad run doesn't means its all over... I also learnt that I need to let my brain reset to remind myself I've runs, walks and run/walks where I've gone further and faster than I ever expected.

As I said the other day I'm an ENFP (Myers Briggs) so I live my life externally, and the research shows I need to be distracted while I exercise... But I listen to music irregularly, all of my training for Edinburgh was without music... But I was training for something new...

And that's what I need, a new goal, a new challenge... Or a way of making the 190miles of next May seem a lot closer...

Time to put the kettle on... and while I think feel free to chip in!

TTFN

Paul

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