Thursday, October 19, 2006

220 minus your age, my ass

Last night was the second night for the running group. I originally thought the loop we were running was .6 miles, but I was mistaken; it was .8 miles. After a warm-up and stretch, I actually ran the entire .8-mile loop, which impressed me greatly. I surely could have squeezed out the last bit to make it a mile. Regardless, I was jogging at a slow pace and heaving pretty heavily. I constantly checked my heart rate, which topped out at 220 beats per minute.

220.

Holy. Shit.

Heh, that blows the whole maximum heart rate equation of 220 - your age right out of the water. In that case, I'm a newborn. Give me a break people, I wasn't born yesterday. (rimshot!)

I have no idea why I have such an incredibly high heart rate. My coach nicely informed me it is because I am out of shape, but he doesn't know that I've been exercising since March. I can definitely tell I've improved my fitness, even though my freakishly high heart rate has not changed much. I definitely have a way to go before I can call myself "in shape" but I'm not a total sloth either.

On a slightly different note:

I know this guy who refuses to exercise because he believes that our hearts are genetically coded to beat a pre-determined number of beats, and then we die. Just like a woman only has a certain number of eggs, and she will never produce more, he thinks that each of us has a number. Like numerology or your Sleep Number. If that is the case, I either hit the Heart-Number Lottery in-utero or I'm going to die next Tuesday.

Right. Moving on.

Soon I'll be able to keep up to this kick-ass cadence. Does this make you want to cut your hair high and tight and strap on some combat boots, or what?!

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