Be Still My Beating Heart Rate Monitor

Tuesday was insanely long. I left home before the children were up and got back after they were in bed. It was wonderful and important and I'd do it again in a heartbeat, but I'm thankful there are (at most!) only a couple of elections a year. I do NOT know how Southbay Girl can stand working those kind of hours day in and day out! Tuesday was also a very social day. I saw dozens of people I knew and of course, I spoke to hundreds and hundreds of people I didn't know - answering questions, giving instructions, etc. That is a huge departure from the tenor of my usual day! As social and loud as it feels when all my kids are home after school, most of my normal days are spent in near silence, writing. Having to be "on" and interact with people was more exhausting than even the long hours. I spent most of yesterday attempting to recover my internal balance.

To that end, I planned to swim then run. I couldn't get all the pieces together though, and missed the lap swim time at the community center. I did run, but with mixed results. I told myself - easy run, even pace, loosen up the legs, take as long as you want. I followed Shirley Perly's advice and wore an older pair of shoes to see if perhaps my changing shoe brands/types a couple of months ago might be contributing to my brand new knee pain. That part of the run was a success. No pain in my knee or hip or anywhere but a little in my shins, which was expected as that used to be my warning sign that it was time for new shoes and I already knew those Saucony's were at that point.

The part of my run that was less successful was the "easy pace" part. My training plan called for Zone 1-2. All well and good when I was using the rate of perceived exertion chart. Zone 1 and 2 meant easy, can breathe freely and talk, feels smooth. I can do that - a little jog down my almost flat trail - 12 min/mile pace - no problemo. Only now I've got my Garmin who informs me that no matter how slowly I run, no matter how much I think I can breathe, no matter how clearly I can talk - my heart rate is not in Zone 1, but rather is in Zone FIVE when I run. Like redlining. Even at 12 min miles on the flat. The lowest I was able to bring it down and still be considered "running" was to a number that put me in the top of Zone 4. I thought I must have my max HR set completely wrong, but after following these instructions, I feel like my estimate of 194 has to be pretty close, if not a little high. I did average several tests together as she suggested and I'll do the same tests again in a couple of weeks to see if there is any inconsistency, but in the meantime....what? I don't know what to do!

When I saw my heart rate was not coming down after I was warmed up, I walked a quarter of a mile. It came down. I felt completely recovered. I started to run again and boom! My hr shot right back up to the top of the zones. I worked on my breathing and relaxing as I ran, wondering if being anxious about it was making it higher. That helped to a point, as my hr didn't spike going up the one hill on the trail like it did the other day, but I couldn't get my hr anywhere near Zone 3 much less Zones 1-2 and still run. Am I in such terrible shape that it isn't possible to do what my training plan calls for?! (I couldn't even stretch later in the day and keep my heart rate in Zones 1 and 2!!) Either I am ridiculously unfit or I am stupid about how this whole HRM crap works.

I already have enough issues about not doing things "right" and about not being "good enough" - who needs more of that?! Yesterday, seriously, I was about ready to throw my Garmin against the wall. Hard. Poor Garmin. And I didn't want to run ever again if I couldn't do it "right". Poor me. I was in a snit and I was taking Garmin (and quite possibly the fucking bike trainer that I couldn't get to work on Monday) with me straight to couch potato hell. Bring on the Cheetos and Lemonheads***!!

TOTAL DIGRESSION:

***Isn't it a bit disturbing how much the Lemonhead logo looks like Dubya? Or vice versa, I suppose, as the Lemonhead guy is older. Lemonheads are about my favorite candy EVAH but I've gotten to where I pour them into a ziploc rather than look at the creepy yellow dude.

ANYWAY, after the worst of the unladylike cursing and stomping around was over, I pulled out the two poems that turn me around every time. (I've attached them to the end of this post and probably should put them in my sidebar or something.) Dozens of Mary Oliver's poems speak to me, but these two...these two stop me in my tracks. They strike true, cut through my pretensions, remind me to reconnect to center, and lure me back into the painful and joyous mystery of living. They work together like a band-aid and neosporin for my scraped psyche when I trip over myself. The words in the middle are fine and wonderful but it's the first line of the first poem that stops my heart, each and every time. And it's the last line of the second poem that gets it going again, each and every time. Correct zones or no, as long as my heart still responds to poetry, I'm in the game. The rest will work itself out. My Garmin is safe. For now.
Peace.

Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

from Dream Work by Mary Oliver
published by Atlantic Monthly Press
© Mary Oliver

The Summer Day by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean -
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down -
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?