Run, Walk. Repeat.

Hello and welcome to Tobias Talks

I ran 3 times this week, alternating running days with rest days. The goal for this week was to run Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday and then to run again this morning (Monday).

I did the run on Tuesday, a mixture of walking and jogging for a total of about 3km, I then did a slightly longer but very similar run on Thursday and then did my longest run on Saturday. The pacing was pretty consistent between all three, by which I mean glacially slow. I'm trying not to worry about the speed element just yet as that will come later.

For these runs I dusted off my old Garmin 245 Music, did the necessary updates, downloaded a cardio spotify playlist straight to the watch and tracked each and every run. The data is very useful to compare against and I think I will find it motivating in future to see how far I have come and how much I struggled in the beginning. And let me tell you, struggle is the word. I have never been a particularly great runner, although I did enjoy it when I was fitter. But running at 280 lbs is a very new experience for me and even when taking it slowly my heart rate spikes like crazy. At a shuffling speed my HR is between 170-180 bpm pretty consistently. Which feels very tough! I'm hoping that it will start to go down as I get fitter.

I was very interested in trying all this "Zone 2" training you read about online. How it's the "Best way to increase endurance" with some articles going so far to say it's the only way to increase endurance. At my age, my predicted zone 2 would be be between 132-150 bpm. It's very difficult for me to stay in this zone as when I walk I stay below this zone, and when I run I shoot above it. But it's definitely something I am earmarking for the future. Perhaps my old friend Rucking could be ideal to hit this level.

Following the advice of my Garmin watch I didn't run this morning as it still recommended a further 24 hours of rest. So the run has been postponed until tomorrow. So the goal again is to run Tuesday and Thursday with a longer run Saturday and then two days rest before starting again on Tuesday. Between my running days I will either go for a walk as an active recovery or try some form of Yoga, stretching or calisthenics. I have a feeling that flexibility and mobility training will be vital in keeping myself injury free as the distance increases.

Ultimately I am very happy with my progress this week. Even though the scale has barely moved. It feels great to have a more tangible reason to lose weight now, every pound I drop is one less pound to drag out running with me.

Your friend, Tobias

P.S. I need more songs for my running playlist, please let me know on Instagram