The Overly Ambitious Running Pace

Friday I had two social runs, one pre-dawn, one, after sunset, and the next day I went for yet another social run. As if three social runs wasn’t enough pressure on my system I went to a MAS training session on Monday which was hard and then on Wednesday I had Garmin telling me to run between 4:55-5:05km and that was too far.

My vision started to play up and I aborted the run. I still walked a little but I was reminded of a single thing. Garmin Coach is not human, and taking rest days is extremely important. My first mistake was to run so fast, within a short time of lunch. Lunch was inadequate so my body didn’t have the resources for such a workout, and it was tired.

I paid the price. I went from feeling fine to feeling under the weather for two or three days, and I was reminded of why it is so important to listen to my body, and motivation, rather than a computer.

I suspect that Garmin and Coros look at the best case scenario, rather than previous runs, and fatigue. I believe that these watches do not encourage the 80-20 rule. The 80-20 rules says that for every four runs, the fifth can be hard. With social runs every run with one group is hard, whereas with other groups runs are easy to medium, depending in part on your comfort level.

My first mistake was to do three social runs, The second mistake was to run too hard on Monday, but that’s excused by social pressure. If someone tells me to jump off a cliff, I might, if we’re canyoning, but not otherwise. If someone tells me that they want to run with me at 04:30 I accept.

When a Garmin computer says “Run at 4:55 to 5:05 six times for six minutes I should have said “Human says no” and I should have stopped, there and then. I should have ignored computer pressure.

And finally Garmin has an algorithm that says “You slept badly” and “Your HRV is in the red” whilst at the same time it says “Now run to your threshold limit for six minutes six times with two minutes of rest running at your 21km pace.

There is a running joke among runners that Garmin is overly negative which is one thing. We see it on TikTok, Instagram and other places. What makes no sense is that Garmin’s coach encouraged me to overdo it so badly.

I need to try to do a single social run per day, and if there are intervals I need to find a more sustainable goal and eat properly before hand. As to Garmin and other training plans, I need to ignore them. I think the 5km plans are safer. With them you have a calibration run and then it builds a plan.

More posts to follow.