Weekly Workout Recap: Heart rate monitors are addictive

My workouts last week began and ended with three more days of 10K training.  I finished W10D2, W10D3, W11D1 and W11D2.  The workouts are increasing the lengths of my running intervals.  As soon as 10 minute intervals didn't feel quite so painful this week I had a day of five 12 minute intervals, a day of three 15 minute intervals and a day of 25 minutes interval followed by another 15 minutes.  I was seriously ready to stop with 6 minutes left.  No, seriously.  It was like I was back Couch to 5K'ing telling myself to get to the trashcan, now get to the light post, now get to the tree.  I had to remind myself that I don't have permission to stop. Including walking, a wrapped up the week with 38.2 miles. Less than last week but for a change I actually took a whole day off so it's all good.

The highlight of my week was deciding to forgo trying to keep a certain pace and instead shoot for a target heart rate instead.  People talk a lot about how fast they run and I started drinking the kool aid.  Except I'm an idiot when it comes to running so I couldn't really tell how fast was too fast for me.  Everything seemed hard.  Everything seemed to leave me out of breath.

I figured a heart rate monitor could tell me when I was pushing hard enough .  So I googled heart rates and learned more than I ever wanted to know about where my heart rate should be.  And now I'm completely fixated on wearing one and staying in my target heart rate zone.  It's so great! Way better than trying to hit a certain pace.  I can't believe I've owned a heart rate monitor strap for my watch for like a year and never used it.  What was I thinking!  I'm even starting to get a feel for what different heart rates feel like.  Whodathunk!

I also planked some more.  My personal paparazzi captured me with some with less than perfect form on my elbows.  I went down just over a minute and had the nerve to look confused it wasn't longer since I went a minute and a half last time.  So I rolled over and went the distance over two minutes with a reverse plank and proudly called it a day.

Linking up with Little Girl in the Big World for the Weekly Workouts Roundup!