To race or not to race, that is the question.

on Thursday, June 14, 2007 at 9:06 PM

Tuesday: First official lactate threshold run of the training cycle. I've gotten so paranoid about being dehydrated that I probably over did it on the drinking of water the day before. I felt really bloated that morning. I had some problems with my HR strap again. I've been looking for a new replacement strap for a while, but I couldn't find anyone local that sells just the strap part (not the transmitter) in my size, until today. Actually I ended up buying it on ebay which was great considering the exchange rate for the CDN dollar is so favourable right now. Anyhow I did a 2 mile recovery warm up and then did 4 miles at LT pace. Mile splits were 7:09, 7:11, 7:09, 7:11 for the LT portion. Pretty consistent, eh? Ideally, by the end of this training cycle, I'd like to be able to do these at between 6:45 and 7:00 min pace. Based on last year's experience, I think it's possible. One of the first 4 mile LT runs I did last year was at around 7:30 pace. By the end of the training cycle, my LT pace was faster including mile 7 of a 7 mile LT run at a 7:02 pace at a avg HR of 175. I'm actually behind where I was last October.

Wedneday: Did 4 mile recovery. For the first time ever, I think I was able to do a mile at recovery HR at under 9 min/mile pace! It could have been an anomaly though. It's hard to get warmed up properly when doing recovery pace for only 4 miles. Will try again on the weekend.

Today: Did 10.2 miles at around 8:15 pace.

There's a 10k race this Saturday that I've been thinking of signing up for.
I've been weighing the pros and cons, but am right now leaning towards not doing it. It won't serve any training purpose and I'm pretty sure based on my LT run this week that I won't be able to PR in it, so there really is no point to doing it.

4 comments:

Mal James said...

Hey Fran
Glad to find another running blogger , who also posts heart rate stuff , couple of questions Which Polar do you use? The colors on the graph are they HR zones?
Is taht option in the software? Do you paste to Microsoft Paint and then save taht way?

Great Blog will add link from mine

Keep in touch
Mal

Bridgette said...

I was just looking at your graph wondering if I was the only one that didn't understand the graph. :)

Sonia said...

What about your 2nd A.R.T. appt? Hope it went well and you can see some results. My shin splints were gone after 3 appts....

LeahC said...

intersting about the LT pace dropping as the training goes on. I have my first LT of the training cycle coming up next week and I am worried about it since the practice runs haven't gone great. nice job though on being steady!

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