A Passion for Running

Coach wants me to push my long slow runs a bit faster. Lately, they’ve been between 9:40 and 10:00 minutes per mile and he’d like to see me break out of that “comfort zone” and run them at 9:30 min/mile - the pace I’m currently running my “easy” 90 minute runs. I believe in a previous email he mentioned the long run will eventually need to get down to a 9:00 minute/mile pace.

With that in mind, and the fact that my leg felt really good, I decided to experiment by pushing the pace of Tuesday’s 90 minute “easy” effort. I surprised myself:

Time: 90 minutes
Distance: Spot on 10 miles
Pace: 9:00 minute/mile
Average Heart Rate: 157 (about 4 beats per minute faster than at a 9:30 minute mile)

Pretty cool.