the grey zone

Monday: Ran 10 minutes outside
Tuesday: Spin class (45 min) - hill workout

So I read about this thing called the grey zone. Apparently it's what happens to a lot of beginner athletes when they first start training and don't know how to vary the intensity appropriately --and so as a consequence, they tend to train wrong: too hard to be relaxing, but not hard enough to actually make any improvments.

My run on Monday felt like that. It was partly my fault. I had a horrible, stress-laced meeting from 8:00am to 11:30 - and could see the project we were discussing teethering on the edge of ruining my much-needed, much-anticipated fun weekend in New York. I was already pissed off because I was at work on a day that the vast majority of America already had off - and I was equally pissed that I had an 8am meeting on a national holiday (I believe i've mentioned how I've accepted and made my peace with the fact that I am not a morning person). So when I stepped outside the building I was already in a bad space. Then the weather was being blustery and skittish - blowing galishly for 20 seconds and then dying abruptly, leaving the air hot and heavy and smelling like rain. Everything felt unsettled, which is probably why I couldn't find my stride. I pushed really hard in the beginning of the run - feeling like I wanted to leave everything behind me - but just ended up annoyed at the traffic and the weather and pretty much everything -- until I was out of breath and felt my legs burning and my ribs pinching -- completely skipping over that europhic running high when you hit your pace and feel like you could go run to the end of the world. I ended up sitting on a little observation deck overlooking a pond, methodically kicking the leg of the bench. Oddly enough, just the chance to sit down and *be* angry for a second was really what made it stop.

The moral of this story is that I think i need a heart rate monitor. I wasn't going to get one - feeling like it would be indicating a level of professionalism that I don't really feel - but also because I'm not a gadget junkie and don't really aspire to have one. But I think I need something to focus on when I get that distracted by stress, or weather, or traffic - all of which happen to me frequently. The run was horrible -- but it was mainly horrible because I didn't know how to fix it. Was I running too fast? Too slow? Too inconsistantly? Did I not warm up enough? I don't even think I could have been in the aerobic zone - on a normal day I can run for at least 30 minutes without feeling winded like that. But when I get stressed or upset, I fall out touch with how I feel and how my body is working. I think if I had a heartrate monitor that said, "Yeah, you're anaerobic. Slow down stupid", it would help to ground me. I tend to push myself too hard - one more sprint, a little faster - and I think from this book I read that it's only going to guarentee that I just end up hurt, or frustrated, or both.

But on the positive side, spin class today was great - I pushed myself pretty hard on the hills, trying to save a little for Kim's workout on Thursday, but still weighting the bike enough that I was feeling it. I'm beginning to get a sense of what spinning instructors I like the best. And I guess it's hardly surprising that I like the ones who actually seem like bikers. The woman today was great - good music, great workout. But she wasn't a biker. No biker would ever keep a cadence that slow - even if it is up a hill. Since I love spin classes and there's a real workout to be had there, I think I should try to follow the instructors that are good for my training and for my form.

Oh - that reminds me, an equipment update. After my Saturday ride, my left knee was twingy again. I can feel it now too after my spin class. It's not bad, but the consistency that this happens is making me wonder if my bike is set up wrong. Because the bike was made for me (entirely due to a very generous uncle) I have tended to think of it as this magic thing that can't possibly be wrong. But, since I got it (in - may I just add - 1999), I have had new petals put on it and a new seat and maybe I've got my angles wrong. Anyway, I'm going to take it in for a look. I'd really like to buy a new pair of bike shoes (real road bike ones), since I'm training in my moutain bike shoes (comfy, but not stiff). Maybe that will be a present to myself next mouth. "Piano, piano" they used to tell me when I was learning Italian. "Slowly, slowly." All in good time. Heart rate monitor first.