week of 27 October

Today I did a "marathon pace" run. The Brain Training schedule called for a half marathon tune-up today or time trial. Well, there wasn't a half marathon and I wasn't going to time trial one. Plus, I think a half would be too much of a disruption for me.

My plan was to head to the Mt. Vernon bike trail and run the potomac river run marathon course. It's a double out and back marathon and there's a permanent marker at the turnaround (10.5 k from the start). What pace should I do the 21k? Well, I'm a wimp and planned to run 7:20 pace even if that were below marathon hr as I expected it would be from the track. Still, this is a pretty hilly course. The race web page says, "Many flat stretches, some rolling terrain, two notable hills. This is not a flat course." That's about right. In some places the "rolling terrain" is pretty short and steep, which makes it hard to get in a groove.

Anyway, the first 7:20 went nice on the flat and even up the first hill. I kept even pace up the first hill and then kept up the effort, zooming down the other side in 6:59. I ended up running closer to marathon pace then I planned. Here are the splits. (You can see that it's pretty hilly from the lack of correlation between heart rate and pace in some sections.)

warmup - 9:24/154, 9:07/131 -- wonky HRM first mile
7:18/155, 7:18 /162, 7:14/164, 6:59/164, 7:09/166,
7:02/168, 7:15/168, 7:09/167, 7:31/168,7:18/167,
7:10/169, 7:04/167, 7:06/168, 0:45/171 (0.10)
cooldown - 8:47/153, 8:28/150

Splits from Frederick for marathon heart rate reference:
7:35/157, 7:21/168, 7:31/170, 7:34/169, 7:26/170,
7:26/171, 7:23/171, 7:28/171, 7:34/171, 7:32/171,
7:26/172, 7:38/172, 7:43/172, 7:40/173, 7:31/173,
7:29/173, 8:04/173, 7:35/173, 8:14/174, 7:53/174,
7:42/173, 7:56/173, 7:57/174, 7:40/176, 8:10/176,
7:58/175, 2:24/180.

So I did 21k in 1:34:25 or 7:14 per mile. (My half PR pace is 7:08!) The heart rates correspond to a very conservatively paced marathon. By mile 13, I would normally be solidly in the 170s (172 or so), but I'm not sure I could have turned around and done it again. My breathing was 2-2 from the beginning. This is something I probably need to get used to. I used to associate 2-2 breathing with 10 mile pace, but clearly I ran 13 without a problem. I'm now unsure whether to go with my normal marathon heart rate pacing or not. I'd hate to reach for too much and fail to BQ, but I don't want to leave too much on the table either

Here's the week.

Mo - Rest
Tu AM - 10.31 1:27:05 8:27 147 (74%)
Tu PM - 5.01 0:45:21 9:03 135 (67%)
We - 9.46 1:15:25 7:59 157 (78%)
Th - 6.02 0:57:56 9:38 133 (66%)
Fr AM - 1.11 0:10:26 9:23 153 (76%)
Fr AM 9.51 1:14:08 7:48 153 (77%) -- same run, had to reset Garmin
Fr PM 4.95 0:44:38 9:01 142 (71%)
Sa - 5.44 0:50:34 9:18 130 (65%)
Su - 17.10 2:10:13 7:37 160 (80%)
This Week 68.91 9:35:46 8:21 148 (74%)

Mileage was below 70 again. Gotta watch that! Getting in my running this week is going to be challenging, but I'll get it done.