Cooking vs. Baking

Cooks take a recipe, add a little more of this, subtract a little of that, and change it to suit their tastes.

Bakers take a recipe and do it exactly as it is stated. Change one minor thing, and you can create a disaster.

Cooking is art. Baking is science.

I'm a baker.

And that's why I like the approach my coach is taking to my training. My run this morning was so much more enjoyable for me because it was an "exact" thing. After doing a heart rate test set yesterday, the coach was able to provide me with my training zones based on my estimated maximum heart rate (which we figured out was about 199bpm.) So today I got on the treadmill to warm up for a few minutes in Zone 1, followed by about 25 minutes in Zone 2, and 20 minutes in Zone 3 (essentially increasing my heart rate over the course of the workout.)

It was great! I simply set a pace and monitored my heart rate. When it wasn't high enough, I increased the speed. When it got too high, I decreased the speed. It felt good to complete a workout, exactly as the coach had prescribed, and still feel good afterwards.

I'm heading back to the gym in a couple hours to do a swim workout, which, after a discussion with the coach yesterday, is more realistic than originally planned. He graciously altered all of my swim workouts for the next 3 weeks to be challenging yet match my current swimming level.

Things are looking up for this baker!