Marathon pace run. The run was a mixed bag. Legs felt good, but the stride was clunky. No fatigue in the legs, but the heart rate was jacked. It was just that kind of day.
Weather was, again, terrible. Fifteen degrees with an 18mph north wind. To top it off, my GPS was screwed up and kept recording the miles incorrectly, even though skies were perfectly clear. It's time to get rid of that thing and switch to measured courses and a heart rate monitor with a stopwatch.
My wife identified that we are affected adversely by a cold before we even experience symptoms. Last week, she had a problem with her heart rates escalating by 6-8bpm during a workout at the same efforts she was used to, but when the workout was over, she recovered to her low heart rate (120 for her) in less than a minute--very quickly. Today, I experienced the same thing. Two days ago, I had a tickle in the back of my throat that told me I was getting the cold she just had, so I started taking zinc for it. Even though I have remained symptom free, I have had two workouts (Wednesday and today) where my heart rate was higher than normal for the effort and pace I am used to. Initially, I thought it was the three days of biking, causing me to miss out on two strong aerobic workouts. After today, I believe it is the cold.
The workout was 9 miles at 155 heart rate. Mystery Coach has been advising me (if it wasn't obvious), and since the calf problem cropped up, he has been concerned about overstressing the leg as well as carefully managing recovery. 153-155 HR today got me 5:52 to 5:56 pace, which would be disappointing if there wasn't a good reason. Just like in my wife's example above, I recovered to 120HR in :36, and to 110 in :53, feeling like I had just finished a nicely up-tempo jog. Even though the GPS was screwed, I was able to get some times on the loop, which indicated 5:48 pace at 157HR. I'm comfortable that a 157HR today is equivalent to 153HR on a normal day, which tells me I'm still making progress in spite of the brief delay due to the calf problem. Next week's workouts should give tell me if I am right about that, or just blowing smoke.
Earth Day Half Marathon is April 21--coming up quickly. Then, finally, the Fargo Marathon.
So, end result, the weather, the GPS, and the heart rates were a bit frustrating, but I got 9 miles in at 155HR as planned
Run Two | Weather | Supplemental | Nutrition | Sleep | Injury
2 comments:
Earth Day half marathon? You're such a hippie (think I remember you telling me that once).
Legs feeling good but a clunky stride? I'm trying to figure that one out, as my stride seems to get ugly only after the legs start feeling bad. Maybe 10 on the 'mill yesterday has you out of synch. All told, 9 miles at MP is a good day's work, especially if you're right about the cold. Is this day one of a back to back?
Peace, man!
I think the clunk in the stride may have been related to the wind. It was whipping around pretty good.
The half should be a good one. The guy who has won it the last couple of years runs in the 1:08 range. There will be a gap there, but hopefully I'll have someone to run with.
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