My Actifit Report Card: January 14 2025 1st Run of 2025 - Back to the Routine

Today, marks my inaugural run of 2025. It was a tough session and happened to be the first that I had used my Samsung Watch7 to help me push myself even further by periodically monitoring heartrate and adjusting cadence accordingly.

As you can see, I was all over the place with my pace and heart rate with the latter spiking to 186 bpm. This would be in the red-line zone so, as I am not planning on having my first heart attack, I ought to be careful.

After a comment change with another runner on Hive @svanbo, I decided to integrate some "fartleks" into my routine. "Fartlek", a Swedish term meaning "speed play" is a type of interval training that mixes periods of fast running with slower running or jogging.

I would set my stop watch to 35 seconds on for sprinting and 35 seconds off for light recovery jogging. Occasionally, I would interject this pattern with a longer rest period during elevation changes which apparently my watch tracked at 180 ft during this run.

Eventually, I found my sweet spot on a wooded circular trail which spans about 0.25 miles (or 0.402336 for my European friends). My goal was to sprint the entire length but it seems I would gas out about 3/4ths of the way in but I suppose that could be expected after already 3 miles in with various interval drills.

In any case, this will likely be my spot to conduct more structured interval drills. Ultimately, my goal is to not only regain but surpass my speed from when I was in the military. I could run a 6 minute mile back then but was never able to hit the 18 minute 3 mile. My top run was 19:53 minutes.

It may be a lofty goal after more than a decade but my hope is with the right habits and discipline, it can be achieved.

Lastly, I had to give myself the congratulatory pat on the back for venturing off the patch and picking up other people's trash. It's a shame people leave our beautiful parks in such a condition. Least we can do is leave it better than we found it!