total depletion (coach’ll be happy)
Since Andrew gave me a gentle shove out of my “comfort zone”, I’ve been on a mission to see where my new boundaries are. It’s been a very rewarding task since I’m finding they are a lot further along than I’d imagined. Today’s long run was a continuance of that positive trend.
Time: 2:29:25
Distance: 16.84 miles
Pace: 8:52 minutes/mile
Average Heart Rate: 158 bpm (I was targeting 160)
Today’s target heart rate and resulting pace were based on knowledge I’d acquired over the past week:
1. Last week’s 9:30 long run pace did not leave me depleted (coach wants this to happen).
2. Both my “easy” and “hard” run paces have improved.
With those two factoids impressed on my tiny little noggin, I targeted 160 bpm thinking it would, with considerable effort, get me home at roughly a 9:00 minute/mile pace. I was pretty close.
The last 40 minutes were difficult. The last 20 minutes were brutal, reminding me of my very first 20 milers when I trained for my first marathon about seven years ago. I should clarify this: I never felt out of breath – the difficulty was in the legs which got pretty heavy and achy.
I walked in the door 100% spent …but not so exhausted as to put off my trip to calculate distance and pace for the run.
So, a sub-9:00 minute/mile pace is the new long run objective. I dug through my archives and found this post – my best ever posted pace for a 20 miler. I’d say it’s well within reason to guess that I should easily beat that record sometime in the next few months. I have to keep reminding myself that I ran that record in perfect fall running conditions and that, by contrast, today’s run was another one that took place in a fair amount of poor snow-covered footing while wearing winter weight running tights.
The future looks bright.
Tuesday February 13, 2007 @
Well done. Give yourself good balance over the next few days.