Things Aren't Always As They Seem.

3/16/10
Tuesday

Through the day I had various reminders of how hard I worked out in the morning. It seemed every time I moved a different muscle was sore. Regardless, I planned on a tempo run after work as the sun was overflowing with warm rays that excited every inch of my body.....how could I not run.

I have a three mile loop near my house that has a couple good hills and a fairly technical single trail section of about 1 mile. It is a fun loop and works well if I have limited time or am looking for a speedy run with some work mixed in.

I rushed home bubbling with anticipation of an exciting and fast run. Not long after starting out, I felt quite tired and winded. My legs were jello feeling and sluggish. Definitely not what I visioned in my mind for today's run.

By mile two I was beginning to think that running today was not a wise choice. All I thought about was stopping because I felt so slow and out of shape. The hill in mile three seemed endless and my kick at the end felt non-existent.

I was glad to finish the 3 mile run and if not for my insistence of using the garmen every run, I would not have realized how great the run actually was. I down loaded my stats for the run and was quite surprised to see the results.

Things were not as they seemed. The stats showed me why I was feeling the way I was. Yeah my pace was desperately slow compared to what I usually do in the summer or fall, but what was interesting was the effort I was putting in. I didn't feel bad because it was a bad run, I felt bad because I was pushing the workout to a higher level.

My racing heart rate is 160-168 and my end kick heart rate (or short interval) is about 166-174 depending on my effort. During the second mile (trail and hilly) I thought I did horrible. In realism, my heart rate peaked at 164 which is close to race pace.

I was able to speed things up a bit in mile three which includes a fairly large hill, but the real surprise was my heart rate on the hill was 173. I worked extremely hard on that hill no wonder why I felt so tired!

The most amazing stat was the last tenth of a mile. It seemed I was barely able to finish the run and that I had no kick, yet I ran a 7:02 pace and dropped my heart rate back to 160. This means, I had more speed if I had pushed a bit harder and also that I recovered well from the second mile.

Throwing the time out the window and concentrating on my heart rate shows me how much I stepped up the intensity and from a training prospective, it was a great run. The other information I gain for the comparison of pace and heart rate is that my body was tired and needs some rest.

Total run 3.1 miles @28:31 (9:20 pace)
Splits:
8:55.....143-159
10:08.....152-164 (trail)
9:10.....153-173 (hill)
7:02.....157-160 (last .1 kick)