Flirting with 90%

Today I threw caution to the wind and decided to run at a pace higher than Brian Sharkey says I ought to in Fitness & Health.

Given that I test out as having "low" fitness, I'm supposed to stay in a training zone between 60 and 75 percent of my maximum heart rate, 170 beats per minute.

But my heart rate monitor tells me there's no way I can do that if I run instead of walk. My HR simply wants to go up over the 75% level, 128 bpm, and that's a fact. I can't run slowly enough, even downhill, to keep that from happening for long. After about 50-100 paces on level ground, it's bye-bye 75%. Going downhill only postpones it a bit.

So today I picked out a course which is roughly 4 km (2.5 mi.) long, what with going three times around a certain 800-meter (0.5-mi.) circle and another 1600 meters (1 mi.) thrown in for good measure. It's fairly easy, starting off downhill, leveling off, and never really going uphill for long — though there is as good, long uphill warmup walk involved in getting to it. I ran that course.

Or I should say I jogged it. The first, downhill part was easy. Then came the long, mostly level stretch including the repeated 800-m loop. When I got to that, at first I begain to feel pooped. Then, about 1,500-2,000 meters into the run, I got my second wind. I felt fine from there on out.

My heart rate was flirting with the 90% mark, 153 beats per minute, most of this time! On the brief uphills I encountered along the route, it would go slightly over that mark. When I put on a burst of speed at the end, it shot up to 168 bpm, just shy of my measured maximum.

Yet once I had gotten my second wind, I never felt winded. I never gasped for breath or felt like I couldn't talk if I had occasion to. My legs felt OK, with no significant burning ... though I did try to vary my stride length and mechanics from time to time to keep them comfortable. There was plenty of gas left in the tank for that final burst of speed at the end.

I may pay for my ambitiousness later today or possibly tomorrow, my scheduled day off, but right now I am about five hours into my post-run recuperation and I feel great.

So I really don't know what to say. I'm not supposed to touch 90% until I make it to the "high" fitness level, but it seems to be impossible for me to jog for any appreciable distance without bumping up against it. Until further notice, I intend to keep doing runs like the one I did today and scratch my head over why my fitness program doesn't jibe with what I read.