It was in the thirties and very windy this cloud covered morning in Atlanta…

The trail was fairly desolate…

Problems only runners will understand: Just as I turned around for my 9th mile, a bug decided to shoot itself into my open mouth and lodge itself at the remote back end of the gullet.
Resulting in the last two miles being … errrr… full-throated!

1 mile warm up run followed by a brisk 5K (26:40) and then a cool down mile. The group was a little thinly populated thanks to all the staying up last night due to Bengali Puja going on. If it looks like there were more people who showed up for coffee than for running, it is because they did!!

To test out what is happening after the sky high heart rate yesterday, I tried something different today. Put in a warm up mile first. And then put in a faster than normal for me 5K run. After that, another one mile to cool down. The 5K was in 26 mins 40 seconds (at my normal pace, it would take closer to 30 minutes). It was nice and cool 63 degrees.

The heart rate readings today was closer to what I would expect. Highest was 183. It is still higher than what I would think (170 is what I was thinking it would be). But I was also monitoring my lungs. At no point did I feel I was struggling to take in enough oxygen. I will have to monitor a few more days to see if the heart rate is unreasonably high.

Can’t remember ever pushing my heart rate to 210. Usually by the time I reach 170, I feel compelled to slow down. The max I remember from the past was 190. Not sure whether this is a measurement issue (Apple Watch) or the heart was really pushed that hard.

Ran into Molly and Bill in the trail. Pretty impressed with Molly’s memory. She said that we three had run together three years back. Came back home and checked my website. It was exactly three years and a few days back.

With the only Bengali friend in my local circle who has run a marathon – Sanjib.