As I alluded to in my last post, I am having a hard time with LHR training. To the point where I don’t want to run. And if I’m not running, I’m not improving. There’s no point.

I’m going back to running normally. For now.

Maybe I can revisit it in the future. It seems like it might be a good choice if I were actually planning to run a marathon. Or if I were coming back from injury. Or just had plateaued in my improvements from other training. But none of that is true. I got a 2 minute 5k PR the day before I started this nonsense. I’m definitely not plateauing. And why fix what isn’t broke?

I don’t want to dread running. I want it to be fun (or as fun as running gets). I don’t want to spend 5-6 hours a week doing hardly any mileage. I’m just miserable doing this.

My take-away from this experiment is to slow down my easy runs even more. Run/walk intervals are okay for them, but if I want to run them straight, I need to stick to around 12:30-13 min/mi pace. (I have a tendency to speed up to half marathon pace.) I’m also going to start monitoring my heart rate during more of my runs. I would love to see what I’m doing normally. I don’t even know what my max heart rate is.

Maffetone Method, I don’t doubt that you are useful…to some people. I am just not one of them right now. I know that I didn’t stick with it long enough to even attempt to see an improvement. I just don’t think there would be any if I was hating doing it so much.

I sort of fell off the LHR wagon on Tuesday. Not entirely, but my average heart rate for the run was *gasp* 151, which is three beats higher than it should be.

So, the irony is not lost on me, but before I started this training, it was kind of a struggle to get through my runs without walking. Now all I want to do is run without my heart rate forcing me to walk. And run at a normal pace. My watch will beep telling me my HR is too high and I’ll pout and begrudgingly start walking.

Except on Tuesday.

My watch would beep and I’d keep going. And I was running faster than I should be anyway. There were times my heart rate got up to…170! The horrors! I even hit paces of 13 min/mi!

I just can’t understand how this is ever going to help me run faster, especially when I’m walking half the time (or more!). I mean, I get it in theory. But I feel like it will take YEARS. I don’t want to run like this for years. I like speed work! I miss running with other people. And, honestly, I don’t care if my body burns carbs instead of fat. I love carbs.

I’m really, really trying to stay committed to doing this for at least a month (to see if there’s any improvements on my next MAF test), but it’s freakishly hard. It makes me feel…trapped.