Sunday, January 22, 2017

Baby Steps To Continuous Improvement

That's a term I've come across at work, though it fits very well into my running life.

I've complained on many occasions that the numbers at the end of each run just did not look very good and that there was very little progress to be seen for quite some time. While the stated goal of the last few weeks was recovery from overtraining rather than building up new fitness, I found it a bit disheartening at times that the numbers were consistently poor and, more importantly, not showing much inclination to change.

I was in a much happier place the last few days and it looks like patience and determination are finally starting to reap some rewards, All of a sudden the line in my graph has started to turn upwards, and not just for the odd run only to drop back down again. Finally I can actually look at the number and see them going somewhere.

There's no need to get carried away just yet. They are still poor, and in fact they are still worse than during the autumn, so there is still a long, long way to go. But seeing the heart rate elevation in single digits for a change is definitely progress. Now don't mess it up (again)!

Shea is just getting over a flu that had him off school for much of last week and Niamh is just over the worst herself. I have been on tenterhooks for a while; sharing a bedroom with someone who keeps coughing all night does leave you exposed and the badly interrupted sleep doesn't help either. I did feel slightly off on a couple of mornings but so far so good. maybe I managed to dodge that one. That would be a good sign, if my immune system is good enough to fight off an infection that is doing the rounds amongst the family then at least something is working again - at the end of last year I could feel that something wasn't quite right in that regards either.

The pace seems to have shifted into sub-8 territory, for the same easy effort as before, though the heart rate is still a bit higher than I would like to see after a reasonably easy run. But recovery from day to day does soom to work just fine, which is the main concern right now.
20 Jan
7 miles, 55:20, 7:54, HR 149
21 Jan
6 miles, 47:38, 7:56, HR 149
22 Jan
8 miles, 1:02:23, 7:47 pace, HR 152

4 comments:

  1. I'm big fan. question- why go sub 8 if hr still high?
    Regards
    Valdas

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    Replies
    1. I'm not going sub-8 deliberately. I just run at whatever pace comes "naturally". It just happened to be sub-8 the last few days

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  2. Nice going Thomas. I too like to see good or improving numbers on the HR/pace equation. Good for confidence.

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  3. Progress!!! Nice to see some sub 8min/mile appearing regularly again.

    I wonder how much the results from HR and GPS based pace info on our runs affects how we think about them? If we didn't have these would we think quite differently about how are runs are going?

    Personally I find the HR/pace data a useful check to add to my own perception. It can be a bit dis-hartening at times though. My figures looked great by the end of December with steady improvement through the whole month, then on the 31st I came down with flu and lost 8 days of training, and have had to slow re-introduce proper training and my figures still aren't as good as they were 6 weeks ago. I'm guessing this might be a sign that I'm still not 100% recovered...

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