July 23, 2025 - Road to BM HM

If you’re wondering what this is about - One year ago I crawled through a 5K in 50 minutes—now I’m attempting the slightly unhinged goal of running a sub-2-hour half marathon, documented through daily brain dumps complete with training chaos, 5 AM existential crises, random tangents, and way too much heart rate data.

Disclaimer: Posts are lightly edited with LLMs for grammar and spelling, but the sleep-deprived thoughts and stubborn optimism are 100% human.

Sleep: 5h15m – Low
RHR: 59 bpm
HRV: 63 ms

Workout: 10K Zone 2

I’m still running on low sleep. I need to fix this. I woke up tired, breathing hard, and my RHR is higher than usual, and HRV is low — clear signs of fatigue. I’m not sure if it’s from yesterday’s workout or the lack of sleep. In any case, I’ll push through today and sleep early tonight.

After coming back from the hospital yesterday, I mostly rested. I did some minor admin tasks, but couldn’t finish everything I had planned. Today, too, I’ll likely be out most of the day.

When I’m out, it’s my diet that goes for a toss. I prioritize protein over calories on such days.

Today’s workout is a 10K in zone 2. According to the Coros fitness test, that means a heart rate of 140–163 bpm. I want to keep it in the lower to mid zone 2 range. These longer zone 2 runs are difficult — not because of fatigue, but mainly because of how much time they take. My zone 2 pace is anywhere from 8:30 to 9:30 min/km, making it almost 1.5 hours of effort. The second challenge is boredom.

I avoid listening to anything while running — especially during threshold, intervals, or long runs — to stay focused. I like that these runs sometimes put me in a meditative state. But for regular easy runs, it’s tough not having anything to listen to.

Post-run

Cut my run short to 5K, mainly because nature wanted to have a call (Yes, we keep it real raw here). Toward the end, I felt some pain near the right hip flexor joint. Maybe I was overusing my right leg because of the barbell injury on my left quad.

Monday, I had dropped a barbell on my left thigh while performing cleans — it was painful and has left blood clots on the skin.

After the run, we did some mobility work in the group class, followed by landmine press and bent-over row.

I think I’ve been trying to increase weight every class, which probably isn’t smart. I should chart out the numbers and stay at a certain weight for a few weeks to build strength before progressing. I’ll plan this out after reading a bit more for the next cycle.

For now, I need to learn to be patient — not every workout is about maxing out.

Tomorrow

I plan to take a complete break. I’m behind by 10K this week from my target, but I’ll let it pass. It’s not due to fatigue, mostly because I’ve been starting late. My arms feel sore, and it feels like a good time to sleep in. So tomorrow, that’s exactly what I’ll do.

Edit: I didn’t take a break — I didn’t run, but I went to the box.
We did some upper body plyo and 7 rounds of sled push and pulls. I did get a good amount of sleep, though.