Hope is a potent thing

Warning: this is a longish post about running

I have been struggling with running since I fractured my pelvis in 2018. I started recovering from that, and of course got derailed by breast cancer in 2019. I was coming back from that and broke my foot. And as I’ve been trying to come back from that, I’ve been really slow and struggled with my heart rate.

There’s a sweet spot for aerobic work; my Garmin watch has my aerobic range from 138-ish to 153 beats per minute. Threshold (which means I’m working harder but not necessarily building fitness) starts at 154 and goes up to 170 (I think). Above that, is maximum and that’s not good at all. That range is one of the reasons I stopped taking tamoxifen, which is the drug my medical oncologist wanted me to take after the lumpectomy and radiation. But I had serious heart rate issues and my heart rate would spike to 180 and higher within the first 30 seconds of my run.

So all of that is background and I’ve posted it elsewhere. This isn’t about the past but about what I’ve been doing. 

My heart rate was still not great this winter, partly I’m sure to having lost my baseline fitness. I’ve been doing strength and cardio work ever since my orthopedist cleared me to do that, it’s not that I lost all fitness. But I lost running fitness.

I’ve been determined to build my running base slowly and safely so I’ve been running 2-ish miles about every other day. But my Garmin would show that my dang heart rate would spike. I dealt with that by pausing my watch and my run and waiting, usually about 15-20 seconds, until I thought it was low enough and then resuming the run and the watch. 

But that’s discouraging. Sure my pace was OK, not great, not where I was but I felt like I was making no progress and what’s worse, I was not enjoying running. Yes, I run for fitness but I also run because I love it.

I was telling Ben about this last weekend and he suggested just not looking at my watch—well actually, he suggested not wearing the watch but nah, that wasn’t going to happen. So his second suggestion was to not look.

Last Monday I did just that. I ran for fun, by how I felt and as I posted on Strava, I felt amazing. My times were still slower than I’ve been, which is to be expected, but I didn’t stop once and my heart was A-OK. 

I skipped running on Wednesday (I was tired) and did HIIT instead (see? Listening to my body right there), weights Thursday and then Friday I ran, again without looking. And wow, my time was faster than Monday and my run, even by Garmin’s standards, was productive. The photo on the left is from Friday's run.

Today I decided to run a bit slower, see if I could do that and know I was doing it by how I felt, and to run a bit further—mission accomplished AND my times were much better than I expected. Photo at the bottom is from that run.

All of this gives me hope, and hope is the best training tool there is.