I hate zone two
Heart Rate training’s dirty underbelly.
I used to be so free on my long runs. Not a care in the world. Trotting down the road at whatever pace and stride felt comfortable. Sometimes I crashed and burned at the end, sometimes I finished strong but I just ran. I ran without anyone nagging at me.
Now I have a heart rate monitor. One of those silly straps that wraps around your body and nestles like a pacemaker right under your boobs (or in my case moobs). And it is nag nag nag all the time.
Coach wants me to stay in zone two. I set the ‘alert’ on the Garmin and it makes a indignant chirp every time my HR gets too high. It’s always chirping. It nags me to slow down. I have to reduce my stride length and it feels like I’m crawling. I’m one gear over walking. It is so uncomfortable.
Coach says it is good for me. Coach says it will make me run faster. All I know is that it is uncomfortable. All this shuffling and staggering through the miles being constantly bitched at by my electronic shrew – it wears on you.
I’d like to say that a zone two run is easier. I’d like to say that because I’m going so slow my legs aren’t sore. I’d like to say I end feeling refreshed and peppy. I would like to say all those things, but I can’t because they aren’t true. My legs are killing me from having to run at an uncomfortable pace.
It’s all the pain without any of the joy!
As much as I hate zone two training runs I’ll not complain anymore. I believe in trusting the coach. I believe that if you’re going to train you can’t pick the part of the program you like and ignore the rest. To do that is to guarantee failure. You have to do the hard things whether they be 1600’s at breakneck pace on the track or stumbling, bumbling long runs in zone two.
Things will be better now that Coach Jeff has recalculated my zones based specifically on my mutant HR. It would seem that perceived effort has proven a good benchmark yet again – because my zone two has calculated out HIGHER and my zone 3 and 4 have calculated out LOWER than the initial averages I had been trying to use. As always my body was telling me the truth. That zone two that I perceived as too slow – was too slow, and the zone four that I perceived as too fast was too fast.
Heart rate training is a journey…
So – don’t laugh at me when you see me out ‘jogging’…and we’ll see you out there.
Chris,