More HR training...

Thursday: Did 15.3 miles outside before work.This is the longest mid-week run I've ever done before work. Wasn't too sure how I would feel for this considering the relatively hard VO2Max workout I had done the previous day. In keeping with the HR training, I was trying to keep the HR just below 160. It was just about perfect weather for running. Started out at about 5C, finishing at 8C with no wind. First couple of miles were at recovery pace. Mile 5 was a split time of 7:45 or so. Thought that it was a garmin blip but then all the other following miles were at the same pace also. Including the first slow miles, I averaged 7:56 for the entire thing was suprised the heck out of me.

Today: Did 9.4 miles. This was supposed to be a general aerobic run but I wanted to do a bit of a LT run. Even though it's gotten a bit warm lately, there's still snow melting in the shopping mall parking lot where I usually do my LT runs and the parts where the snow has melted just has piles of crap that have accumulated over the winter and shovelled into the area. I headed to the track to try for 5 miles at LT pace. 20 laps around the track is not the funnest thing to do, but it didn't seem to bother me that much. I was really interested to see what the pace would be at my LT HR which I'm guessing is just under 180. The first lap was done at about 7:02 pace while trying to get a feel for the effort. I then settled into between 6:50 to 6:59 pace for the remaining laps. I lost track of the count after a while and did an extra one by accident which I was able to do at 6:46 pace. 21 laps in total, average pace of 6:55 over 5.2 miles or so.

I've volunteered to be a 1:45 pace bunny at a local half marathon next weekend. This is an 8 min/mile pace which at the time, I didn't think would require too much effort for the half marathon distance. I only realized about the extreme hilly nature of the course after. The lowest point in the course to the highest is about a 225 feet (68m) climb which takes place over about 1.5 miles. This is about a 2.8% grade. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to maintain that pace climbing that hill. Good thing is that we get to go down that hill afterwards.