Things sure can change quickly. The week has been going poorly so far, but last night I had a great tempo run. Last week I tried my first trail tempo run of the year--it was OK. Last night it went really well. I warmed up with an easy 2.5 mile run keeping my heart rate under 135 (HR average = 125). Then I joined my buffalo friends for a 5-mile tempo run...but none of them ran with me. Slackers! Actually, Elliot caught me around mile 4 (he started late and cruised past me with ease). My 5-mile time was 38:42 (7:44 pace) and my heart rate stayed within my SAP zone (145-165) with a HR average of 154. Pretty pleased with my effort, pace, and heart rate. I concluded the session with a 2.5 mile cool-down jog. My legs, especially calves, were a little sore after the run. This morning they feel fine...a tad achy, but generally good. That cool down is really important. I hope to repeat this weekly tempo run all year. Next week I am "tapering" for my 50 mile trail race on April 9. I'll run, but maybe the tempo section will only be 3 miles instead of the full 5 miles.
REMINDER: CRUD 8-hour and 24-hour trail race still has an early registration discount through Noon Saturday. The race is excellent. This year's event is on May 21 (at Jubilee State Park outside of Peoria, IL). I just registered for the 8-hour run.
FREE barefoot/minimalist e-book. Today and tomorrow only, Jason Robillard is offering his barefoot running book as a free download. I have the paper version and it is a great book. Grab this while you can. Here is his post (download link toward end of post).
3 comments:
Wow you are so meticulous with your training. I am so impressed! I wish you could give me a bit of that dedication to the details!
I admire your attentiveness to heart rate, etc., but also think of George Sheehan's famous advice to us runners: "Listen to your body." I knew Sheehan in the 1960s and 70s, and that was before we had runners' heart monitors, but I think he would have said that even when we have them, it's important to be able to listen directly, through our own senses and internal signals. I just read about a study of taxi drivers, which found that drivers who relied on the "old" way of navigating (forming "mental maps") had a larger hippocampus (reasoning center) than those who had relied for years on GPS devices. I'm going to post this on my website www.willhumansendure.com tonight or tomorrow. Good luck with the 50!
Ed and Kelsey,
Yeah, lately I've been strapped to that heart rate monitor. It's good for me right now--keeps me from doing too much--and allows me to push just the right amount on the medium-hard days. I'd rather go by feel, but I don't trust myself yet. I get too ego-involved and think I'm better than I really am at the moment.
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