First off a goal statement
Mini Goal #3: Finish the 3 scheduled W3 runs on Friday, Sunday, and Tuesday
Today was the first of the week 3 runs (W3R1). This marks a relatively significant jump in the length of the run intervals. W1 has 1 minute intervals. W2 has 1.5 minute intervals. W3, however, jumps to 3 minute intervals and I wasn’t sure how I was going to cope with that.
My knees were quite sore before the run today. Last night I didn’t take an anti-inflammatory (I just forgot to as I ate my dinner). So I decided not to take one this morning and to see how things went. Last night I couldn’t sleep because of the aching/pain in my knees and in the end after 3 hours I got up and took some panadol to take the edge off enough for me to get a few hours rest.
As a result I have been quite tired throughout the day, but I was determined to keep my appointment with a treadmill! I had my previously mentioned plan in mind. Start the running intervals at a sedate 8.5 km/h to monitor how my heart rate behaved over the 3 minutes. I didn’t want to exhaust myself and especially my leg muscles as I am relying on them protecting my knees. Tired muscles equals more strain on the already punished knees.
The first interval after the warm up was very hard as my knees (and especially my left knee) was very painful (limping kind of painful). It stayed very painful throughout the first 90 second interval.
The next interval though was one of the aforementioned 3 minute intervals. Three times as long as those from just 2 weeks ago and twice as long as last weeks. My plan to start on 8.5 km/h turned out to be the most brilliant guess so far. My HR climbed steadily for a couple of minutes then started to plateau a bit, finishing off at (I think) 160. Up there at the top end of Zone 4, definitely anaerobic but before the lactate threshold I think. I turned out to be doable. A bit of an effort but I got through it without thinking “I can’t do this”. Also the pain in my knee settled down a bit as it had warmed up to the work it was doing. Or perhaps I was focussing on other things enough that I put it to the back of my mind.
A three minute walk, 90 second run interval, and 90 second walk later I was ready for the last run interval, the second 3 minute challenge. Riding on a wave of confidence I set the speed to 8.6 km/h rather than 8.5 km/h thinking that I was relatively comfortable for the first 3 mins. Oh. My. God. I can still barely believe how much difference 0.1 km/h would make. My heart rate climbed faster and I begun to really labour for breath as the third minute started. At the thirty seconds to go mark I thought I would not be able to finish. I was thinking of reducing the pace so that I could finish the interval but pushed on for the longest 30 seconds so far. My HR up to 170 when the interval finally finished and I could feel my body not being able to keep up enough oxygen no matter how fast and deep I tried to gulp in air and how fast my heart was trying to shift it around my body.
8.5 km/h a challenge but totally doable. 8.6 km/h a real struggle. So picking 8.5 (just a wildly lucky guess) proved to be the difference between me having my first 3 minute interval with the result “I can do this” rather than “I can’t go any further”. I wonder how successful I would have been if I had started at 8.6 instead and struggled in the first long interval. Would I have been as motivated to finish as I was?
So LESSON LEARNED: Its better to start a bit slow and build up to your limit than to push yourself a fraction more and demotivate yourself.
Speaking of motivation. Some of you have been following and encouraging me on facebook and I want to tell you that I have gained a great deal of motivation as a result. And those of you who sent some personal messages describing your own journeys I can only say that they have been uplifting tales that have encouraged me to persevere.
And finishing with an achievement. Mini Goal #2 – Achieved. Win.
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