Week 5
By Kevin | February 21, 2012
Feeling good, feeling strong! Last week was the first step-back in mileage to recover and prepare for increases in workload. Although it didn’t have me feeling antsy to run, it did have me feeling like I wanted to increase my pace during my long run of 9mi on Sunday. I found it challenging to hold back when I was supposed to be in HR zone 2, and found it a relief when I came upon a downhill section that allowed me to pickup my pace without stretching my heart rate into the next zone.
The 9-miler had two miles in the middle where I was assigned to increase my effort to a zone 3 feel, without looking at my watch to see the actual HR. Reviewing my data later, I see that I did pretty well to get my heart rate up during those two miles, but I didn’t do as well in keeping it back down to z2 when I was done those two miles.
It seemed like the last two miles of my run had a lot of uphill, and that was throwing my HR up into zone 3 without any increase in pace. I felt like I was barely moving. It was frustrating, but I understand the importance of hitting those HR targets.
Tonight, I’ll be able to open it up a bit more during a 4-mile over distance run, including some hill repeats at a zone 5 feel. Plus, I’ll have the added motivation of trying to squeeze my run into a tight window of time between work and an evening commitment. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be running until after 10pm tonight…which makes for a difficult time winding down to sleep.
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