Get On, Clip In, Fall Off

Bad habits

Yesterday I went out for my first run in exactly five weeks. Various circumstances (of which laziness and hot weather were not the least important) had conspired to stop me running for a while. I was also expecting to shortly be leaving on my long walk and so wasn't worrying too much about training, but as this has now been postponed I figured I should start getting myself back into shape for the two marathons I'm still entered for in October.

So out I went, with the intention of covering a reasonable distance (an undulating 10km) but without worrying about how long it took in order to figure out just how unfit I've become. It was certainly good to be out again, and gratifying that my legs and muscles still seemed to remember what they were for. The alarming thing, though, was my heart rate. It was a hot evening and much of the run was in direct sunlight, but that alone shouldn't have pushed my heart rate over 185 and even over 190 for some of the time. The maximum recorded was 199, probably on one of the uphill sections, which is not exactly a million miles from my absolute max HR. The average over the entire run was 185, where normally I'd expect it - especially at such a gentle pace - to be around 172-174.

In the end I survived okay, getting round the fairly hilly 10.5k in 55 minutes and change. I guess, however, that cardiovascular fitness drops off faster than muscle and bone during breaks in training. The good news is that cardiovascular fitness also develops much faster, so things should be back to something approaching normal in a few weeks. After that it's going to be time to sharpen up for the Loch Ness Marathon on 2 October, which I still plan to do despite the walk being postponed, and the Dublin City Marathon on the 31st, which I still, well, hope to do, but that depends on how things go at Inverness.

Incidentally - did the three Ethiopians who took all three medals (Tirunesh Dibaba, Berhane Adere and Ejegayehu Dibaba) in the women's 10,000m at Helsinki on Saturday take the idea that the 10,000m is a 400m race with a 24-lap warmup to heart or what? Kudos also to Paula for turning out for the 10,000 - in a field like that, coming ninth in an event which isn't your primary focus is pretty damn good anyway, whatever the armchair pundits on the BBC Sport website might say (sample paraphrase - "she just didn't bother trying to win because there wasn't enough money in it for her". Uh-huh, just like there's a massive appearance fee and huge prizes on offer for the marathon next Sunday, right?).