And Then Disaster Struck: When Your Run Goes Bad!

Man, oh man, did I have the worst run EVER this morning! Sometimes it happens and it’s frustrating. Other times it happens and it is just ridiculous how bad it is, and my only option is to hysterically laugh about it. Today was definitely the latter!

I started off really excited. I’ve made a mental decision to start over with my running, start back at square one. I have my new shoes (which totally rock) but running has always been hard for me. I figure if I want to happily complete a HIM next summer, I’m going to need to put in some quality runs and gradually build up my mileage. No injuries for me!

Anyway, I made the (disastrous) decision to bring Tals with me. I should have known this was a bad idea. I mean, when is she ever behaved?!

I also decided to start training with my heart rate monitor, which I knew could make my run tough. I’ve talked about this on here before, but my heart rate simply SKY ROCKETS when I run and I have no idea why. It doesn’t happen when I do any other form of exercise. Using the fairly generic formula, my max HR should be 191 (220- my age….. you do the math!)  As I started running, I looked down and realized my HR was sitting right around 189….so I essentially I’m pretty sure my heart is going to explode. No idea why, and it’s not like I was a speed demon or anything. I was literally jogging a 10 minute pace. After see this waaaaaaaaaaaay too high number, I decided to do more of a run/walk to try to keep my HR lower. I’ve heard that training in lower level zones helps this type of problem, so I thought I’d give it a try. So yeah, first problem of the day was that my heart almost blew up. Or something.

Not too bad of a view, no?

Next problem occurred when Tals decided that she was hurt. All of a sudden, she sat down in the middle of the trail, held up her paw, and looked at me. I searched and searched for like 5 minutes but couldn’t find anything, but I also couldn’t get her to move off her little furry butt. I finally gave up and called my sis, asking her if she would come get me. She said sure, but just as she said this, Tals jumped up and darted into the grass. Apparently it only took a goose to remind Tals that her paw was fine. What a pain in the ass!

So we kept jog/walking, my heart pounding at the pace of a newborn baby, Tals newly re-energized and bounding all over the place, when I realized her damn leash broke. Like, seriously, broke.

So, of course, this frayed section quickly snapped afterwards and Tals, quickly realizing that she was free, dove headfirst into the stagnant and swampy pond. This would’ve been fine, but I’m pretty positive she had absolutely no intentions of coming out of the disgusting water, and we were about 2 miles away from home. I tried to rationalize with her, but the best I could get out of her was her “compromise” to move from the swampy lake to the moss-covered and giardia filled drainage canal. Let me tell you, she smells awesome now.

As you can see, I finally sloshed into the drainage canal and tied her damn leash around her collar. My glorious purple magic aqua wonder shoes got sopping wet, but quite honestly, I was so over it at that point that I didn’t care. I sprinted the rest of the way home, dragging my mangy mutt behind me, and I didn’t even care that my hr monitor was flashing a super cool 193. (Seriously, how am I alive?!?!)

In short, here are my stats for my lovely Saturday adventure:

Miles: 2.75
Time: 36:28
Calories Burned: 394
Average HR: 175

In light of those fun-filled facts, I have a few question of y’all:

Tri-color, lots of energy? I’m giving her away for free!

Does anyone have tips on this whole heart exploding thing?
Seriously. I understand that my max hr may be different based on a variety of factors but why does running (and running alone) have this type of extreme increase on my hr?

How can I fix it??