I've attributed it to a my brain moving to power-saving mode and muting some of my anxiety / perfectionism tendencies. Does this explanation resonate with you at all?
This realization was what finally allowed me to stop bouncing off exercise. The "no pain no gain" mindset of exercise was baked in and the result was years of smattering short burst of extreme exersion (1-2 weeks of running until my lungs hurt) between months of inactivity because being uncomfortable sucks and motivation is fleeting.
This time I started slow and consistent - run/walk three times per week without pushing myself until I was wheezing and hurting. Over time I got better and eventually I could just run for a while without feeling out of breath or painful.
At some point I actually started to enjoy it. Two years later, running is one of my main hobbies and I do it basically every day. I'll be running my second marathon in October.
I'm not sure on the depth of scientific evidence on the topic, but the prevailing understanding in the serious running conversation is that supershoes reduce recovery burden during training. This means you can increase training volume without imploding, which is an advantage at race time.
Yeah, max effort racing once you're well trained is basically doing math based on your training data to estimate your physical limit, and then spending the majority of the race in agony, telling yourself whatever is necessary to avoid slowing down to hit that limit.
If part of you isn't wishing for death by the halfway mark of a 5k race, you've probaly left time on the table.
To your point, none of the ASICS shoes listed even have a plate. Two of them are basic daily trainers, so it's more to do with the letter of the law, re: stack height, than specific performance benefits.
As a new runner, your heart rate will be really high. Unless you have some notable cardiac risk it's not a big deal.
Ignore the zone 2 messaging for now. Zone 2 training is basically useless for getting better at running when you're just starting because a new runner staying in zone 2 is just walking. You need to run to get better at running. For now, just ignore heart rate and focus on how you feel. Do run/walk and gradually work on increasing the time you run before you stop to walk.
PS.
"Zone 2", “80/20" and the like is advice that's really meant for intermediate runners starting to train more seriously and it basically just means "it's better to run easy most of the time so you can run more, and so when you do run hard you can get full benefit because you're not already exhausted. "
It is good advice in context but has been spouted without context by so many running youtubers and influencers that it has probably done more harm than good.
I've attributed it to a my brain moving to power-saving mode and muting some of my anxiety / perfectionism tendencies. Does this explanation resonate with you at all?