Labor Day Weekend: it may be the unofficial end of summer but in our house, and maybe yours too, it marks the beginning of new routines, a fresh new school year, and my favorite: cooler (running) temperatures, cozy mornings and nights, and my husband’s favorite: football.
But we didn’t send summer off without a celebration. We took another trip to the coast and as usual, we enjoyed shrimp boils, sandcastles, beautiful sunsets, and made amazing memories with friends and family.
I read more of It Begins With Us (the follow up to It Ends With Us) and listened to the second ACOTAR book at night. I drank High Noons (passionfruit is my persona fave) and Charlotte city favorite Crown Town Frose during the day.
When it came to exercise, my Hal Higdon training schedule had me at 5 miles this weekend. However, since it was at the beach and it’s flat, I decided to run 7 slower miles and test out heart rate training for the first time.
What is Heart Rate Training?
I found this article from Runner’s World that explains the heart rate zones and why we want to train our aerobic system to avoid putting as much stress on joints and bones with every run.
From what I gather, training in Zone 2 will allow me to avoid fatigue and overtraining which will allow me to recover quicker. Win Win.
Zone 2 for me is between 132 and 145 bpm and it felt SO SLOW.
But considering I’ve run intervals for years (10 min running, 1 min walking), I remarkably stayed at the same, if not better, pace by sticking in Zone 2 (or 3, I tried, but old habits die hard). I barely had to stop at all (mainly just to cross the street) and I wasn’t nearly as zapped at the end.
Here’s how it looked for this 7 mile “Zone 2” run:
Now, I will figure out how to best incorporate this training throughout this fall season. I guess I will do most of my long runs this way? There’s so many opinions and training options that I’m not sure exactly what I’ll follow, but for now, I’ll test it out on most of my upcoming long runs.
I also tried out my brand-new vest during this run.
I first talked about this on my instagram (@emilytherunnerbee) last week. My husband thinks I look like a mega dork, but do I care? No.
Some of my favorite features:
It fits tightly but doesn’t feel constrictive
It has reflectors on the front and back
It came with a thin water bottle that fits in the pockets
There is a deep enough pocket on the back for my phone
Includes two zipper pouches for gels, chapstick, etc etc
Breathable
A couple of things I didn’t like about it but were not deal breakers:
I wish the one pocket on the front was big enough for my phone rather than having to put it in the back pocket. I guess if I wasn’t running with water, it could go in the water flask area?
The water bottle seems pretty cheap and like it could rip easily.
But all in all, for $34.99, I have been very pleased. Here’s the Amazon link if you want to check it out.
Even with cool new running gadgets, I’ve been struggling with keeping any sort of concentration during my runs. I’ve been so scatterbrained that I can’t focus on one genre of music, one album, one artist, one book, etc.
My years-old Spotify playlist that I shared a few months ago has been my ride or die, but I’ve been venturing out a tad, so I’m working on a new playlist.
I just added more:
Sublime
Master P
Post Malone
Morgan Wallen
Megan Thee Stallion
Sexxy Red (for my sister LOL)
Luke Combs
and Eminem.
Do you have any song recommendations that you love to exercise to? Share them below because I’m always in need of good tunes!
One song that I finally added was this one by Post Malone ft. Morgan Wallen. It’s fabulous and so very Summer 2024.
Anyway, as we said goodbye to summer schedules and longer days, I’m excited for the change of the seasons, excited for my upcoming races, my new training techniques and I can’t wait for coffee on the back porch with a blanket in the morning! It’s nearly here!
Oh, and one last thing…when is it acceptable to start watching Hocus Pocus? October 1? Not sure I’ll make it that long.
Add some M.I.A. Paper planes to your playlist
Great suggestion. Added!