I became lazy for the past days and I just stopped running since last July 30 and that makes 9 days of no running. Three days ago, I came up with a video on my You Tube Channel and the topic “What Happens To You After One Week Of No Running?”. Aside from my personal observations and feelings, I posted a survey question on Facebook about the same question. I got a lot of comments/answers from my friends and from the Public and those comments are mentioned in the said video/episode.
Starting today, I resumed my running and I decided to post my running workout for the day in my blog. This will be a daily routine for me in this blog. Actually, three days ago, I decided to have a run in my Backyard Loop to conduct my 2nd MAF (Maximum Aerobic Function) Test for the month of July. However, on my 3rd mile, my Suunto Watch HR Monitor just stopped and stuck to 113 BPM as average and it could no longer go down even if I was already walking. In a few minutes, I found out that the HR Monitor Belt has no longer have a signal to my Watch. I just stopped and I was able to run and hike for 4 miles.
Today, I did a one mile easy jog as my warm-up with the thought that I am going to do my 2nd MAF Test. My HR Monitor was working and I started with 85 bpm and it registered 112 bpm as soon as I finished my warm-up of one mile. Since I have reached my lowest HR within my range of 112-122 bpm, I decided to start my MAF Test. After my first mile, my HR registered at 121 bpm with a time of 14:25 minutes. I rested for 30 seconds by walking and then I started my 2nd mile. I have slowed at the middle of the mile when my watch registered at 122 bpm and tried to maintain it until I finished the 2nd mile in 16:30 minutes. I rested again for 30 seconds before I started my 3rd mile. When I saw my bpm at 121, I started my 3rd mile and had my pace a little faster. I was able to maintain my average bpm at 122 until I finished my 3rd mile in 14:55 minutes. Having confident of my bpm at 122, I started my 4th mile after resting for 30 seconds. After finishing 2 loops of my Backyard Loop which is equivalent to 0.60 miles, my HR registered at 122 and I was on a “auto-mode” in my run. For the last loop, I was running through perceived effort and I was confident that I was not going more than my 122 BPM. When I finished my 4th mile, I saw my watch registered a time of 12:39 minutes and I was surprised that my time was so fast. But when I looked at my Average BPM, I saw that my HR registered at 123 bmp. I might have run at a faster pace when I was thinking that I was running easy on my perceived effort.
Because of this, I rested for one minute instead of 30 seconds just to be sure my HR will go down at 122 bpm. My rest for 1 minute brought down my average bpm to 122 and I started my 5th and last mile. My 5th mile registered with a time of 15:05 minutes. I just walked for another 300 meters before I did my stretching exercises. In summary, I was able to run a distance of 6.2 miles or 10 kilometers for 1:40+hours.
The rolling is the summary of my 2nd MAF Test (July 2020)
1st Mile—-14:25 minutes 4th Mile—-12:39 minutes
2nd Mile—16:30 minutes 5th Mile—-15:05 minutes
3rd Mile—-14:55 minutes
Tomorrow, we will find out if I have improved or not from my 1st MAF Test as we will be able to compare it and come up with an assessment. For the meantime, this is the video that I have posted on my You Tube Channel on what happens when you rest for one week with NO Running. Thanks for watching and please subscribe for more videos on running.