trying to stay out of zone 4 while doing cardio is easier said than done

I think this depends a great deal on who the individual is, this much is for sure. For an overweight person, getting into zone 4 or "anaerobic" beats per minute with your heart rate probably consists of just walking a bit fast, for me, someone that does about 50 minutes of cardio almost every day and weight trains at least 2 times a week, it takes a bit more than that.

I suffer from a much higher heart rate than you might assume by looking at me, but much of this has to do with the fact that I am quite large from years of bodybuilding and not all of this weight is conducive to running. It's really nice for doing squats and for just looking good but those huge and strong thighs of mine actually work as a detriment when I am running.

It's something that will sort itself out in time. I would bet that my thighs are diminishing in size as time goes by because I no longer do "leg day" at the gym because I use my legs quite a lot when I run for 60-90 minutes.

My last go at running was a pretty great day actually. I had decided before I left the house that my objective here was not to run without stopping but instead to try to keep my heart rate in zone 3. I don't want to spend too much time in zone 4 or zone 2 because zone 4 wears you out and zone 2 doesn't feel like exercise at all. You can see the peaks and troughs as far as my heart rate is concerned.

My pace per km wasn't something I was concerning myself with at all although I will admit that at the start anyway, I was trying to chase mama speed. I did the first 2km, maybe 3 (idon't remember) and then went back to monitoring the hear rate up and down up and down.

What ended up happening was a day that i felt like I could have gone twice that distance and only stopped because I ran out of water. I sweat A LOT. Normally I weight around 2-3 kg less when I get back than when I start and this is why I replenish on the go. In the past I had said that you don't really need water on these runs but I think that if I am losing 6 pounds of weight on a run via sweat there is a chance that my body might need some sort of replenishment. I'm not risking passing out from heat exhaustion again, so the water comes with me.

The cool thing about this for me is that I never really felt like this was very difficult. I could have gone more but the lack of water meant it was time to quit. I was a little frustrated when I got back home and realized that I was less than 500 meters from a 10k. There's nothing particularly special about running a 10k... it's just a number that runners feel good about when they pass it.

I'm going to go on another run like this today. It should be good because it is a bit overcast out there today which means that I won't be in AS MUCH danger of overheating as I normally would be.

On and on we go!