Thursday 18 July 2013

Heart rate V pace rate

Still enjoying the heat wave that has been hitting the country for nearly two weeks. Forecasters are predicting we could actually go another week like this which given weather in the past is nothing short of amazing.

What it means for running is that I have to try to get my running done in the morning. No chance of me running in the heat that's for sure. Tuesday morning  I was scheduled to run a fast 5 miler with the middle 3 miles at a faster pace than the first mile. At the moment fast is a relative term. Did the usual 5 mile route in Charleville. It's fast and flat. Did mile 1 in 7.55 with the fast portion in 7.34, 7.34, 7.41. I was feeling solid enough at that point running the last mile home in 7.30 with a easy 2 minute cool down jog afterwards.Hr worked out as 160. Again that is high for what was for me a slow tempo run. Previously I would have run the same tempo at around 7 to 7.15 pace with a Hr reading of 150 but it was the best workout since the marathon 6 weeks previously.

Wednesday was by contrast a bit of a wipeout. I over slept and considering I had a bit of work to catch up on I never managed to get out at all. In hindsight that was pretty dumb and probably had more to do with me reacting in a lazy manner. Will know better next time. Thursday morning decided to run a 5 mile jog at heart rate rather than by pace. The target heart race was 144. Mile 1 took 8.45 but the other miles were run slower and slower in order to keep the Hr to 144 with the last one passing in around 10 minutes. I will persist with this midweek method for a while yet hopefully sandwiching it between two pacier workouts.

I was reading with interest a article debating the merits of running by pace or running by HR. Both sides of the argument are very strong but I like to think that running recovery, long runs and midweek runs by Hr and tempo and interval workouts by pace might strike a happy medium. Of course the ideal outcome would be to run at a fast pace but within the correct HR parameters. That I am sure will come back in time. That is why I feel committing to another marathon cycle would be unwise. For the moment I will just commit to training.

Anyway it's time to get back to entering a race. I decided to do the Donoughamore 7 tomorrow evening. Last year I ran this at a handy enough clip of 49.52 or so and I had hoped to get under 49 minutes this year. It is a hilly course with 2 miles uphill, 3 downhill and 2 uphill again.It's a tough race and probably not the most ideal one to be racing as a comeback race but at the very worst it will be a good chance to get 7 miles up on my legs. I won't be predicting a time either I will just see how it goes

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