Tag Archive | heart rate training

Living in Reality

Jan27

Often in life we hold on when we should let go. We dig in deep instead of walking away. We hold on too tight for fear of loosing something when we know it’s time to loosen our grip. It’s hard. Our instinct is to tighten our grip because while it is hard to hold on, letting go is even harder.

We see this with so many parts of our lives and the lives of people we know. Everything in society and media reinforces this –

Don’t Give Up

Hold on Tight

The Only Thing Holding You Back is Yourself

Push Yourself to the Limit

Yes, sometimes this is true. Sometimes we do need to hold on tight, not give up, and push ourselves to the limit. There are also times that this does not work for us and actually does us a great disservice. The trick is to know when that is the right advice and when it is time to call it a day, let it go.

I’ve talked about letting go in the past. Sometimes we let go only to grab back on and don’t even realize it. It’s a long and tedious process. Holding on tighter and thinking we are doing what needs to be doing.

I’ve been finding that starting over with no expectations has been both surprising and good. It’s actually much harder than you think because we all have expectations. Sometimes in order to find yourself, you need to let go of all that is holding you back. All the expectations that are actually hold you back and don’t let you move forward.

As mentioned before, I recently started training for my virtual NYC Half. I was looking forward to actually training and have been going by heart rate and not pace. It has been freeing to not watch my pace. It’s been harder than I thought to try to not push to run faster. Although do not confuse this with thinking that these are not hard runs. To not feel like I am failing because I am trying to maintain something that for now I have no business trying to maintain. It has taken away disappointments of not hitting paces, not maintaining paces, or dealing with the effects of doing so. Effects from my Hypoparathyroidism like muscle spasms, muscles cramping, and recovery that more than your average recovery.

Last time I was training for NYC Marathon, I was training to run a sub 2 half which I ended up doing. I still remember pushing during the race. I remember feeling confident in my training. I vividly remember the last push to the finish line and so much about the day. That was where I was then. I recently found a slip of paper with paces that I used for a training run and it struck me how different my running is now. How much has changed in such a short time and how long it has taken me to realize different isn’t bad, just different.

I also know that there are so many that have Hypoparathyroidism that would love to run the paces that I am running. That would love to be healthy enough to even run let alone train for a Half Marathon. No I am not where I used to be, but I am still able to do so much and should appreciate it for what it is not what it used to be….. not what I want it to be…… not for what I think it should be…… for what it is.

When you take pace off the table and just listen to your body, you might actually surprise yourself. Yesterday I went for a 4 mile treadmill run. Although my treadmill and my Garmin have differing average paces, I felt good with the pace. This run was just right for where I am now. It was hard, but it was also doable. It is where I should realistically be and it where I should be running. Dreams are necessary and worth striving for but living in reality is necessary too.

Time to lay it out there.

Time to be proud of where I am because I should be proud of it

Living in Reality

Dec27

There is a song I remember singing in church as a kid.

“It only takes a spark to get a fire going. And soon all those around can warm up in it’s glowing.”

I’m not sure why out of all the songs we sang this one stuck with me, but it did.

Anyhoo…..

I’ve been humming it recently because I have been feeling a spark again. A spark of fire. A spark of motivation. A spark to do more. I am not sure where it is coming from, but I like it. I am feeding the low flame to keep it from burning out. I think it is easier to snuff out the flame of motivation then to get the flame burning brightly. I miss the fire. I miss the motivation.

This 30 day challenge has been very helpful. Some days I will take forever to get motivated to get into the garage aka home gym, but once I’m there I never regret it. I also realize that one thing that I often do is going in flaming hot and then burn out. Push too hard. Do too much. Don’t pace myself and make it unsustainable.

There is no reason to do any of that. The goal is to keep moving. I am not training for anything.

The summer before my surgery left me Hypopara I ran the NYC Half in the Spring 1:58:59 for a pace of 9:04. I ran a local 5K in the summer in 26:26 with a pace of 8:30. Then just weeks before my surgery I ran the NYC Marathon in 4:56 with pace of 11:18 and while that may not seem stellar that was due to not running a smart race. I literally, figuralively, and realistically was at my physical peak in 2016. I was ready to chase that 4;15 marathon. I had unlimited energy. There was no stopping me………. or so I thought.

We all know the expression, Nothing is impossible. One it’s face everyone wants to cheer it but really it’s not true. Some things are impossible. Some goals will never be reached not for lack of will but due to reality. We have to create goals that are within reach. If I were to set a goal to PR a race right now, I realistically would not be able to reach it. But if I were to set a goal to finish a race (if there were such a thing as live events), then that would be in reach. So in life it isn’t so much as failing at our goals, but setting goals that our realistically attainable. Just because goals are attainable does not mean that that you don’t need to work and work hard to reach them.

In thinking of where I want to go with my fitness goals, I think I need to readjust how I am setting them. I’ve been focusing on pace with my running but I think at this time I need to think about training by heart rate for a while. From there I will then be able to determine what realistic goals I can set with my running. Until then I will just learn more about heart rate training. In working with weights if I tried to lift weights like I did in my Crossfit days, I would injure myself. Why would I think it would be any different with running.

So here is to living in reality and working with what you’ve got. I’ve got a lot to work with mostly my ability to keep plugging along and not give up. So I will just keep plugging along.