Run 396
Average pace: 6:04/km
Location: Burnaby Lake (CCW)
Distance: 10.05 km
Time: 1:01:05
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 28-32ºC
Wind: nil to light
Calories burned: 770
BPM: 155 <- exciting new stat
Weight: 156.5 pounds
Total distance to date: 3224
Device used: TomTom Runner Cardio
I normally run on Sundays but already ran yesterday and today was forecast to be hotter than yesterday, which was not exactly icy cold. The sensible thing to do would have been to take the day off.
Instead I headed out late in the morning and did another 10K run because I have obviously gone mad from the heat.
In order to minimize the agony and suffering I was about to subject myself to I opted to try out a feature on the TomTom I hadn’t used yet, which is to set a run based on one of the heart zones. I chose Endurance, as this is two levels below Sprint (what it has been clocking me at for the previous runs) and would result in a more deliberate and presumably easier pace.
TomTom has determined that my default BPM for Endurance running is 139. I hit that less than half a km in. From there it ticked up to an average of 155, which actually puts me in the Speed zone, one below Sprint. While faster than intended, it was slow enough to have the desired effect, namely the run was much more tolerable as I never pushed in any significant way. This was fortunate as the temperature started out at a very warm 28ºC and climbed to a yucky 32ºC by the time I hit the 10K mark.
Running in such a way to keep my BPM below 139 would feel almost absurdly slow, I suspect. I may try again but for now I think I’ll stick to the more traditional distance runs. Also, the default display for heart zone runs is some kind of bar graph that I found difficult to read while running, what with the moving and all.
My overall pace was 6:04/km. Normally I would find this horrifyingly slow and start shouting for someone to bring me a walker but since it was intentional, I’m okay with it. I sweated like a very sweaty person right from the start of the run. Finishing six or seven minutes sooner would likely have reduced me to a puddle on the trail.
Perhaps because of the lesser effort I experienced no real issues. My left foot did hurt again but it started later and did not hurt as much. After the run I gave it a few minutes to recover and that eliminated the pain for about the first km back and minimized it for the rest of the way, reasonably impressive given this was my second 10K run in 24 hours.
I am not doing a third 10K tomorrow, however. I’m not completely crazy yet.
