Thursday, April 17, 2008

Heart Don't Fail Me Now

When I'm within sight of a 5K finish line and my lungs are on fire, there's always a few more drops of gas to be found to power me on home.

When I've busted through the wall on a marathon and my legs are screaming bloody murder, it's still possible for the mind to tell the body what to do. Not easy, but possible.

Yet when I'm barely breaking a sweat but my HR is too high, no amount of mental toughness can get the heart to beat any slower than it wants to. It just doesn't work that way. Invoking every cuss word I know doesn't work either. Feels like it should work, but has quite the opposite effect on the heart. Dammit.

After 7 consecutive weeks of steadily decreasing average mile pace (12:21, 12:03, 11:40, 11:28, 11:26, 11:10, 11:02), my 2 runs this week were back at 11:30 pace - why, I have no clue. It's like my heart forgot how to run. I'm going to blow this week off and start again next week.

9 comments:

jeanne said...

dude, we can so run together now! you should be happy!

I really have to try this HRT thing.

David said...

My philosophy is now to start running slowly and then shoot for a negative split with gas in the tank for that fantastic finish you wrote about.
Pass Go. Collect $200. Start again.

Kevin said...

Nice blog. Cool to see another local-yocal pounding the pavements. I'll have to stop by from time to time. I also stop by GandaMans blog, so maybe I'll have to register for that 25k this summer. (By the way, I ran that Coppell Stampede in 2005. Small world, huh?)

Sunshine said...

Love that sign!
So .. time for ammendment of life.. and training schedule?

Unknown said...

Love the photo of that sign...I can relate.

Maybe you need to rest and recover before trying to decrease pace again?

Unknown said...

Might just be a temporary set back. three steps forward one step back.

It may also be stress related and not exercise.

Deene said...

i go through periods where i have heart rate issues - haven't figured out why yet.

DawnB said...

hi Rich could you tell me what plan you are fallowing?

peter said...

Your mind can always tell your body what to do near the end of a marathon? How do you do that? Politely? Abruptly? Is it an order? A plea? A deal?

So what's it like for a 3:59 marathoner like you to keep throwing down 11:30 first miles?