adaptation
Today was my long run. Not particularly long by that standard – a mere 90 minutes. However, today’s 90 minutes was preceded by 11 days of running and I am very happy with the adaptation my body is going through.
I’ve had one or two days where I’ve been fatigued and one or two where I’ve had some tightness in my legs but those things have gotten better with each day of running.
But the best news is two-fold:
- I seem to have found my stride. A very economical, high-cadence stride.
- I am uncertain if it is because of the stride/cadence adaptation, but I am having a much harder time getting up to my target heart rate while running. By that, I mean I must now run quite a bit faster to get to my targets. And that’s including the fact that I’m running in quite a bit of snow now. Of course, this development may not have anything to do with stride/cadence/running efficiency – it may be that I’m simply getting more fit. I am unsure what the reason is but I am certainly happy about the progress.
So, I run for another six days before making the next jump in my training. At that point, my long run will jump to two hours and the rest of my runs will be 90 minutes easy or 60 minutes hard.
Comment by 
Tuesday November 14, 2006 @
A drop in heart rate at the same training paces is a sign of better fuel economy. The engine works less but produces the same velocity. However, the converse is not true. One cannot naturally assume that they can now run back “up” at the previous HR and last as long as they did. Fuel economy is not linear. In other words, the sweet spot is now a lower HR and the training will slowly raise this HR back up to theoretical numbers (80% for example)over time.
My advice is to work right from this new HR level. Over time, you’ll notice the HR will climb, the paces will increase, but your ability to withstand the pace will remain the same. If you forcibly jump back up to 80% maxHR you might find the going quite difficult as the fuel economy plummets.
You’re doing great. Nice and easy, it’ll come to you before you know it. Consistency wins.