Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Proved It Like a Theorem

Today was my first day back to working out since the Cough From Hell set in two weeks ago. I decided since I needed to ease back anyway (still have a teeny cough) it was the perfect opportunity to test my theory about where to find my steady Zone 2 pace - the Elusive 140 HR.

I warmed up for 10 minutes and then gradually dialed up my speed until I got a steady 135 HR, which ended up being at at 3.7 mph (~16:15 mile). As I'd hoped/feared, it's not that I was doing the LSD wrong, it's that I'm so lacking in cardiac fitness at this stage that my steady Zone 2 HR is a fast walk.

And I also wasn't exaggerating when I whined about avoiding this pace for a reason - today confirmed my suspicion that I literally could not maintain that walking speed without a treadmill pushing me. It's an almost torturously fast walk, which was frustrating because the rest of me felt fantastic. I know I can only walk like when my legs (bad calves in particular) are feeling their best, so it's more incentive to keep up the stretching and massage therapy because I want to do proper base training.

But even with the little frustration that I currently have to walk for my LSD workouts I'm happy because I learned something concrete today, and I finally managed to nail 20 minutes kept perfectly between 135 and 140. I'm content to know that if I keep doing this the little frustration will disappear because I will get faster.

7 comments:

Lisa said...

I know how frustrating it can be. "I will get faster" is exactly right. :)

Great job staying in Zone 2!

Habeela said...

Hey a fast walk is better than snail pace! Woohoo! Keep it up and you'll be flying in no time!

jbmmommy said...

You sure will get faster, good for you for sticking with your plan.

I haven't tried the HR monitor because I know I'll face the same frustrations. I could hit 140bpm walking to the mailbox some days. I should try it and see what happens, though.

Veeg said...

You WILL get faster! For sure. :) And you'll do it in a way that's infinitely repeatable.

Sixteen Chickens said...

That cough from hell made it to my house, to my lungs specifically, I have coughed so hard now that my ribs hurt. Did I mention that whooping cough is going around? I got a call from the health dept on Thanksgiving day, no kidding. My son was exposed. Great say I, just flippin' great.
Great job managing the HR. Your right, it's almost easier to run than to walk that fast!

Anonymous said...

I dont know if this will work for what you are trying to do but.... Have you tried to increase the angle on the treadmill? You should be able to decrease the speed to a level that is comfortable for you and still keep your HR in the zone.

Hope it helps

- Rocks

ShesAlwaysWrite said...

Anonymous/Rocks - that's a great idea and based on the fact that I used to do incline walks all the time I can say you are absolutely correct that it would do the trick. The reason I haven't done it lately is walking on an incline kills my poor mangled calves, so I try not to do it much. But the walking crazy fast hurts them too.... maybe I'll split up my base training workouts to some fast and some slower w/ incline so I get both. Thanks for the suggestion!