Some data

Well I finally got a new battery for my HR monitor to see how my heart is doing compared to my legs. The data was pretty shocking! I've used it on 2 runs and 1 ride so far, and I've realized how out of shape my heart is compared to my legs. The two runs that I have used it on were with Nick Best (32 min 10k cross country this year). He invites me out for his second run of he day, which is usually just a slow tempo for him. I wad amazed to see that my heart rate never dropped below 175, even on downhills. To have a HR of 175 in the summer would mean a pretty painful interval effort that couldn't be sustained for longer than 5 minutes. On one uphill I even hit the 190s!

The crazy thing is that for such a high HR, I don't feel that bad. I can carry on a conversation with nick ( although it's easier for him) and my legs don't burn at all. I have also noticed that my HR never recovers, which I guess is why I die in the middle of workouts these days. The same thing happens on the bike. I usually have a higher HR when running compared to biking, but now it's the same. Just increasing my cadence to 110 will get my HR up to 160, something I could rarely do this summer if I tried my hardest.

What this basically tells me is that when you decrease your training, your heart is the first to go. I'm sure a lot of people already knew that, but I really thought my legs would be holding my comeback in check, not my heart.
Tonight was a beautiful twilight run with nick in the snow. Something just felt peaceful about tonights run. I've been going through intervews and cuts for jobs lately so it's nice to get out and clear my head.
A dopo,
mj

Rocky Road

This is the first time I have ever been out of shape, in the sense that I am not physically where I am mentally. Mentally I think I should be able to lead the two groups that I run with (when there aren't Kenyans or Pros), but physically it is a different story.

I finally understand why professional athletes don't come back from injury by re-joining their teammates right away. In most pro sports, the guy will workout by himself for a few weeks before joining the group. This is mentally really important I think. I wanted to re-join both the Lifesport and PIH groups right when I got back from AUS. I underestimated how out of shape I was (after all, I felt pretty good running in AUS), and it has been mentally hard for me.

I'm not trying to say that I have it hard or anything, but it is mentally tough to not be able to finish a hard workout because of nausea, or feel good for 1km and then exponentially fall apart after that. The last PIH workout saw me feel great for 4/12 450m reps, before imploding with nausea and dragging some serious ass. I felt like I was some loser that went out way to hard beyond his abiliy.

Mentally, it's pretty discouraging to see all of your peers ahead of you, when you have stumbled a bit. This discouragement has made me less "excited" to head out and workout in general. After all, most athletes like to go and workout because they are good at it, and it's fun to do something your good at.

This is why other pro athletes don't join their teams after injuries. They take really small steps and enjoy the progress.

The problem is, I am on the fence of whether I should take the slow route, or just suck it up and get the crap kicked out of me for a month or so and get in shape faster.

That being said, I had a fun bike ride today in the frozen world we call Canada. One of these days I'll get in the pool, but I will definitely be swimming by myself for a bit!