Neither Agony Nor Ecstasy Just Aerobictivity

The session today stirred up no agony and therefore there was no ecstasy when it was finished.  But I procrastinated most of the day before doing it, because I was sorting through thoughts of the previous and current heart rate zones and the several different sources of standards for what is a good effort level to exercise at on a daily, non-race basis.

I won't bore with details, but I did agonize over it a bit and turned to yet another book of training advice, one by Dr Phil Maffetone.

Finally I remembered the motto of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - don't overthink it, just do it.  Of course, it is phrased totally differently and in a totally different context in Douglas Adams' book.  The way he wrote it is, "Don't Panic".

What I finally decided to do was to settle on a simple definition of what is aerobic based on a percentage range of maximum heart rate.  Based on what my heart rate used to do during the 26 years of long, slow distance running, that seemed reasonable.  So of course I don't know what my maximum heart rate is, but I do know that it is far higher than the almost totally worthless formula, "220-age=HRmax." The last time I saw my heart max out within the past decade, it was up to 191. God only knows if that is its maximum, but that was high enough for me.

Therefore the parameters for today's strictly aerobic session was simply to keep HR between 133 and 163.

So I set up an  online session of 14,000 meters, hoping for some company.  Scheduled it 8 minutes in advance of current time, with the session description simply, "Just do it," for the sake of those people who always want to know, "what pace do you have in mind?" 

It would have been a miracle if anyone saw it and joined in.  No miracle in that respect happened today and it was done without online company.

Here's the RowPro finish screen:

The motto for today was Just Do It.

Today's Just Do It session report