Listen to Your Body to Improve Your Running
Some Tips
I once was a runner who just could not resist checking my GPS watch while running. Heart rate monitor, pace zone, and the recently introduced running power meter were all I heavily relied upon. Every 10 minutes or so, I check my watch to see which zone I am at. But after running more miles and accumulating more intensive workouts, I find those defined metrics do not match my perceived efforts quite often. Some days, I feel quite off when it is called a 6-mile tempo run at marathon effort heart rate zone, which is between 150–160 beats per minute for me. But that day, I was just so flat and cannot drive my legs fast enough to hit that zone. I finally realized that the human body is not just like a machine with heart, lungs, and legs, and can be ignited whenever you want. Even the machine needs some maintenance and cleanup over time. Since I figured this out, I started to practice how to listen to my body effectively and build the routine. The following are my practices.
Pre Run
To be honest, living in the modern days is stressful, and sometimes we runners just jump out of the bed in the morning and find ourselves starting running after 15 minutes of waking up. This is efficient but is a very injury-prone habit. It is better to run 10 minutes less and wake up your body gradually. Make sure to do at least…
