It's a little bit frustrating honestly. I have been doing more cardio in the past few months than I have ever done in my life outside of high school and yet, I don't seem to get any faster. I think I have plateaued and there will have to be some sort of really difficult effort on my part in order to change this.
What has happened lately is that I am not really pushing myself on my runs but instead I try to maintain a pace that isn't painful for me and I don't really mind doing it. I have found a comfortable 5k pace where it really isn't a big deal for me to run that far and I always feel like I could do more once I am finished.
But I must admit that I am a bit on the disappointed side when I do finally finish a run and then cool down walk home.. Then later I will look at the stats on my app and realize that I am actually going slower than I was a few months ago.
It's disheartening but at the same time, I have stopped looking at my pace and instead just listen to my body because one of the most important things to me has always been that I have to find exercise for me that I don't hate doing, I don't loathe getting it started because it is a somewhat enjoyable experience.
Still though, I kind of feel like I aught to be going faster than this, even if it is completely by accident.
Not that long ago I was chasing doing close to 6 min kilometers but I started to lose my desire to go running at all because it was so taxing on my body. I would frequently get sore afterwards and I had to negotiate with myself about whether or not I was going at all. The entire mantra and way of thinking behind "normie-fitness" is that I don't do things that I hate doing - that all of what I do is supposed to be something that while I might not look forward to it per se, I don't hate doing it either.
So I suppose I kind of set myself up to always end up in a fairly relaxed way of pacing myself.
I know that I could go faster than this and in the past I have gone faster than this despite the fact that my endurance is actually a lot better now than it was back then. Did I lose my drive? I don't think so. I think what has happened is that I have found something that I know I can bang out in 40 minutes and feel ok after a shower whereas the way I was going at it before was something that sometimes I would get dangerously overheated and the next time I was contemplating doing it, I would really struggle to get motivated to do so.
So maybe I am doing something right, even though I am not all that pleased with the results.
My heart rate isn't improving as much as I would like it to either though, and that is disappointing as well. Perhaps I should see a doctor about this situation because it doesn't make much sense to me that a guy that does 4-6 hours of cardio per week has such a terrible BPM.
There's people that I know that are older than me, exercise less than me, and are not looking as in good of shape as I do that have their BPM max that is much lower than mine.
Regardless of this disappointing results I am going to keep doing what I am doing. In fact, I am about to go head out for another run in the dead heat of day right now. Maybe it will be better.
