Cygon’s Blog

Took another go at the same 10 km route I ran on saturday.

Time: 1:35 with an average heart rate of 161 bpm reaching up to 180 bpm. Killed 2005 kcal on the run alone!

Apparently, my body takes more than 4 days to fully recover from such a trip since I was still feeling the weariness from Saturday’s round. Another thing I can credit to the weight I put on during the past years, I guess.

It took quite a bit of pushing to reach the milestones in the same time, but it was a lot of fun. When I was at the lower end of the valley (directly before a 3 km uphill stretch) my legs were already heavy. I’m somehow growing a taste for this, the harder I have to fight myself, the more I enjoy it. I willed myself up the 3 kms without slowing down and felt proud

Shortly after, at 1:05 my right foot’s levator muscle started hurting and didn’t quite fulfill its task anymore, so my jogging form got a bit awkward. When at 1:35 I finished the route and stopped jogging, I immediately noticed the front muscle on my left thigh was done for, too. Luckily, it regenerated after a few wood-legged steps, so I didn’t have to hobble through town.

I think I’ll do a shorter regenerative run on Sunday. My legs definitely got stronger, since the last attempt, the muscles just weren’t fully restored again!

On Saturday, after a good break of about 10 days, I finally took the 10 km route I had been planning all the time.

It took me 1:36 at an average heart rate of 154 (maxing out to 184 bpm). Seems my heart rate is still getting lower all the time. I was hoping my muscles would catch up and I could enjoy pushing myself through the track at 170 - 190 bpm (call it masochistic, but I like the feeling :p).

Well, judging by my watch I got rid in excess of 1887 kcals, with the EPOC effect surely kicking that way below 2 mcal, if not 3 (yay!)

There’s still some way to go to get back to 10 km / 1 hour. Actually, I have to run 50% faster. Don’t think that’ll be doable with reasonable effort unless I get rid of some excess weight :/

I felt like I was having a cold on Saturday and Sunday morning, but after feeling quite good in the evening, I spontaneously decided to try a longer route this time. The old routes are getting boring, so I planned out a new 10 km route.

I figured my way through the forest hill in the north just fine, but then, well, sort of chose the wrong path upon entering the second forest stage. There was not an inch of even surface plus logs littered all over the path. I slightly twisted my left ankle two times but it didn’t swell, so I assumed it was alright.

After noticing the path didn’t even take me remotely to where I wanted, I cut short downhill through the forest. I ended up near a stone pit. When I had paved my way down to the road, I had to backtrack quite a bit to return to where my planned route would have led me.

The rest of the track went pretty well, except maybe that at the final bend, which would orient me back towards home, I still felt pretty fresh and thus went off in the opposite direction, leaving my planned route again. I ended up running a good part of another route before finally heading home.

I can’t plot the exact path I took at the places where I left the route, but from what I can piece together, I jogged for about 13 km. That took me xx:xx:xx at an average heart rate of xxx bpm (maximum at xxx bpm).

Looking forward to repeating this run without choosing the wrong path and without twisting my ankle

Still felt a bit drained today (gardening work…) and decided to jog the shorter 8.6 km version of my running track once more.

Took me 1:16 with an average pulse of 159 bpm and maxing to 186 bpm.

Had some issues with my watch (a Polar AXN-700), it kept jumping to 50-70 bpm during the run. The batteries are quite fresh, so maybe there’s a contact problem in the sender unit.

Didn’t even go all out today and yet I’ve beaten my previous attempt’s time.

There’s a medium sized uphill part in the first third of the route that I had been doing rather slowly up until now. Last weekend’s gardening work had given me sore muscles (at least after I topped it off with another jogging round the next day :p), but now that it has subsided, I can really notice a difference. Did aforementioned uphill section at full speed and my legs felt as if I was still going on even terrain. Only my breath sped up like crazy.

This route currently has a length of 8.6 km. There’s a small extension I can add at the eastern side of the track that makes it 10.1 km. I think next time I run this route, I’m going to do exactly that. The only thing left then is to go for the 1 h / 10 km pace and I should be back at my intended condition level!

Today’s time is 1:11:56, average heart rate at 164 bpm (as I said, I was on an easy run, not originally intending to beat my record :-]) and a maximum of 186 bpm. My watch says I wasted 1557 kcal.

Hey, 1:11:56 total time, 53:56 in target zone (129 - 169 bpm) and 17:56 above target zone. Does 56 have any meaning?

Had to pull a good measure of gardening work on Saturday, so this turned into quite a crawl.

I ran it in reverse (clockwise on the map) and then took a shortcut in the forest along the line where the dark trees and the bright trees meet. Well, actually the shortcut turned into a small nap

So today’s time is 1:31 for a mere 6 km run. 1645 kcals expended and an average heart rate of 147 bpm (172 bpm max).

Wohoo! Today was a warm and sunny day, so I went out and tried my newfound route again (last time it was very wet and I had a hard time getting through all the mud).

My previous time on this route was 1:38

Today, I did it in 1:15. Yes, I managed to cut off 23 minutes!

Average heart rate was 172 bpm (I think it’s good for the pace I had today), maxing out at only 186 bpm (no sprints).

Didn’t reach the 2 mcal mark this time, but with 1.7 mcals I’m pretty close =)

Just a little bit more and I can go for the 10 km / 1 hour pace again!

Yesterday, I got pulled a tooth, so I was somewhat unsure whether I should run today. There were no problems so far, so I decided to try the quick route (6.5 km) from last week’s Tuesday once more. Back then, it took me 58 minutes with an average heart rate of 157 bpm.

Today, I finished in 51 minutes, average heart rate 162 bpm climbing to a maximum of 191 bpm. The steep part (from the sharp bend at the southmost part of the route up to the 90 degrees bend after you’re out of the forest again) was still challenging, but besides a certain burning in my leg muscles, I didn’t feel bad at all. It think my condition is slowly returning to its normal level!

I’m somewhat worried that my maximum heart rate is so low. Some years ago, I was able to sustain a heart rate of 210 bpm for a few minutes and reached at least 198 bpm when sprinting uphill. Maybe this is simply age, maybe I’m not pushing myself hard enough. I hope the latter one is correct!

Today I tried an entirely new route. Well, technically, I already attempted this earlier in the year, but before I could finish, the sun was already setting and my shortcut back home ended up with me losing both my shoes up to the hilt in the mud. I had a hard time pulling them out again and the darn stuff was so sticky it almost pulled my socks of when I tried to get back my shoes

Now, with enough time, I avoided the muddy meadow completely. There was still enough mud to turn this into a small version of the british mud run and then some, but most of the time, I could get away with wet shoes by clever sidestepping.

Today’s Route was 8.6 km, took me a horrendous 1:38 (blame the mud!) with an average heart rate of 161 bpm throughout the run (maximum still low at 184 bpm).

May watch (a Polar AXN 700) says I’ve broken the 2 million calories mark with this run, time to throw in some lunch!

I could still feel my legs from sunday’s run but because this was one of the few sunny days in the year so far, I decided to do a light jog through the forest today anyway. Contrary to that plan, at the end of my planned route is a step hill that has been troubling me for some time and I set my mind on jogging it up

The first 30 minutes were okay, then my thigh muscles started feeling quite weary. Right before the hill I had planned to jog up. It was an interesting experience forcing myself to keep jogging. Maybe you know this from yourself, you’re already exhausted at the beginning of the chicane and try to get your mind back to the “I think I can” side while your unconscious cleverly tries to stop you by extrapolating how wasted you would have to be after the next difficult section.

Well, now I can proudly say that for the first time in maybe 4 years, I’ve done that hill again. Not at full jogging speed, but it didn’t degenerate into walking. Hugh!

Today’s route was 6.5 km. Time taken: 58 minutes!

Surprisingly, even though I hadn’t completely recovered from Sunday, my average heart rate was only 157 bpm (today’s maximum was 189 bpm). I didn’t feel any effects of having a cold anymore, maybe Sunday’s run killed it off =)