Sunday, September 21, 2008

week of 15 September

Monday 3.04 0:30:03 9:53 131 (66%)
Tuesday 6.06 1:00:34 10:00 131 (66%)
Wednesday 14.05 2:08:53 9:11 134 (67%)
Thursday 8.43 1:22:00 9:44 128 (64%)
Friday 10.31 1:32:14 8:57 137 (68%)
Saturday 10.08 1:30:54 9:01 137 (68%)
Sunday 20.17 2:54:38 8:40 147 (74%)
This Week 72.13 10:59:16 9:08 137 (69%)

Another 70+ week, so that's good. I really just had to chill all week to recover from last week's intensity-fest, including the "training run" I did at the half marathon. The hamstring seems to be recovered and I didn't feel it all on the 20 miler today. The knee thing just lingers and I walked the few very steep downhills. I think I need to get back to doing my easy days on the track or the treadmill (if I fix the squeak).

You can see just how chill Mon-Th were. 9:44/128? Come on! Friday I let the run come to me and used the uphills to get my heart rate up without stressing my legs. That felt right.

Today's 20 was a repeat of two weeks ago, but with better weather. It was 52 as I rolled out the door! It heated up pretty quickly though and was 69 and clear when I finished at 11 am. Still it was pretty dry and very nice. I finished the run very strong, running my last mile on the infamous 10 laps/mile track at ~180. I was shooting for 45 secs/lap (7:30 pace) but most came in around 43 (7:10) and then I stopped keeping track. The Garmin says 7:05 pace for the mile, which is probably fast, but not way off. Overall the pace for the run was 8:40 and hr 147. 149 is usually my magic number for these kinds of moderate (or progression) long runs, so that was a decent pace. I used to believe I could run a marathon 80 secs faster than 20 miles @149 bpm pace. It worked that way a couple of times, but I'm not sure that's the case. 7:20 pace would be pretty nice though! (3:15:59 is 7:28.)

Anyway, it was a good week and I set myself to put the intensity back in next week. I'm considering doing "something" with a 20 mile race next weekend. I love the race and wish there were more 20 milers (making me feel guilty about not doing it) and it's a great opportunity to do something that would be tough on my own. Last year I did 20 w/14 at MP. I thought about doing 20 at 8:15 (90% MP), but I'm not sure that's the right thing to do at this stage and it costs $40. I need to act quick if I'm going to do it, because the race usually fills up and they're advertising "limited entries."

1 comment:

Mindi said...

NICE!!

The 20 miler sounds fun. It is hard to figure out how to run it. My guess is that you are a pretty experienced runner, however, so you can probably get away with a fair bit. Why don't you try running the entire thing at goal MP?