Pushing Too Hard

Running has become interesting. It is not something that I have done much since my left knee decided to head in the opposite direction from the rest of my body on a football field many years ago. The first mile is never fun, but I am learning that this is true for everyone. I have to believe that it is very similar to the first five to six miles on a bike ride. You have a layer of glycogen on your muscles that needs to be burned off before the muscle starts to work efficiently. When you get through this layer, the pain goes away and you can actually start enjoying the activity.

On a recent TEAM run, we were supposed to stay in zone two of our heart rates. I am just not able to run in zone two. I can maybe walk, or trot in zone two, but not actually feel like I am jogging. We started out at Minnehaha park and the Olympic distance group, ( we have Sprint, Olympic, and Half Iron groups) was supposed to run up to Lake Street bridge and then come back to the point of origin. I was able to keep it low until I got frustrated being by myself, and wanted to get back to the point of origin and be done. Not because I was not enjoying the run or the morning, but I was tired of not feeling like I was pushing hard enough.

For assistance, the green bar is zone 3, yellow bar is zone 4, and red bar at top is zone 5. This run came out at about 5.3 miles, in about 1 hour 15 minutes.

The week after the graph above, we did a nice 1.5 mile warm up approximately. Then we stopped and discussed the actual workout we would do. Again we started at Minnehaha Park and ran out to Minnehaha Academy and then headed back towards the park. Lock and Damn #11 is about a half mile from the park. There is quite a large hill that leads down to the river, and this would be the workout for today.


The Sprint group was to do four hill repeats. The Olympic group was to do six repeats, and the Half Iron man group was to do eight repeats. Go down to the bottom of the hill, and keep a steady pace back to the top and swing your arms to help pull you up the hill. Then you use your next down hill to help recover (slow your heart rate back down).

I can tell you that this was a beautiful morning! It was warmer than it has been so far, and I was feeling strong, despite having a few adult beverages the night before. I ran my six repeats, and the TEAM was really impressive. Those on the way up the hill worked hard and those on the recovery down hill were cheering for those working on their way back up. These cheers definitely help you put the pain aside and allow you to push through to your goal.

I decided that I wanted to do a seventh repeat. In my mind it was one more repeat than my sisters chemo sessions, (and this one would be for her). I would use that for motivation. Lisa, one of my TEAMmates who I have ridden Tahoe, and done the San Diego marathon with decided she would do one more with me. We had a nice chat on the way down and talked about my sister and one of her personal honorees.


We started back up the hill. We were moving at a steady even pace. About 30 yards from the top of the I asked her if she had a sprint left in her. We picked it up a little and I hit my after burner and made it to the top. I had to walk around a bit after that. The seventh peak (see below) is my heart rate at 171 beats a minute in zone 5. I got my breathing under control, and decided I was not done yet as a few of the Half Iron group were still out on the hill. I would do one more repeat, and this one would be for me.


I walked about half way down the hill, and then started to jog the rest of the way to the bottom. Drew one of the Training Captains, picked me up and finished the jog to the bottom. Drew is a machine. I don't know how many repeats he ran, but he made them all seem effortless. Drew kept setting goals for me as we climbed. He asked me to pick the pace up steadily and we were doing well. Mike our coach even ran up with Drew and I. Mike completed the Wisconsin Ironman with coach Bob two years ago. As we neared the top, Rachel came down to give encouragement. Rachel completed Ironman Wisconsin last year. We were about 50 yards from the top and I decided to push it. I started sprinting, trying to catch Rachel. I made it to the top, and felt okay.

Well, I felt okay, until I looked down at my heart rate monitor and saw 206 beats a minute. I kept moving and brought my breathing under control. I kept a close eye on my heart rate and watched it slowly fall. I still felt okay, but decided I would walk back to the park instead of stressing myself further.


Upon downloading the data from my heart rate monitor to my computer, I found that my peak rate was 209 beats a minute. This was not good. This was not real safe. Had I not sprinted, it would have been better. I am proud of the eight repeats, but not for the stupid moment of losing control. There is a time to push, but you can definitely push too hard and this was one of those times.



Total run distance 5.7 miles 1 hour 19 minutes.