Tuesday, December 26, 2006

A Good Day to be a Runner


Today's schedule was for a 7 mile run, and it was a good day to run. The temperature was around 62 degrees with a light drizzle - it was cool and I felt good!

I decided today would be a tempo run - I was going to focus on maintaining a turnover of 172 bpm (thanks to my training buddy Podrunner). I was also targeting between 11 and 11:30 min miles. I am hoping that these tempo runs will help my legs remember a good pace. I also was going to monitor my heart rate and try to keep it on the lower end as long as possible, for at least the first 4 miles. If I felt I was pushing too much, I would just shorten the stride a bit but maintain the bpm.

So for the first 4 miles, my heart rate was hovering right around 151 or 152 bpm. I feel good at that rate and can easily maintain a conversation. After mile 4, I picked up the pace which, in turn, picked up my heart rate which hovered between 158 and the low 160's - still a good rate. Conversation would be difficult, but that was ok since I was on the second half of my run. My final mile I pushed it up just a notch, probably between 9:30 and 10:00 min mile pace. I finished the 7.3 miles in 1 hour and 20 minutes, about an 11:03 pace!

The drizzle stopped and the sun even peeked out for a bit, but the temperature remained cool which helped to keep my heart rate down. My max heart rate at the end was 171 bpm - which was great! Today was a good day to run!!

Tomorrow I am off, then I have a 5 miler on Thursday and a 4 miler on Friday.

Run well!

2 comments:

Susan said...

Go Chris go!!!! I love it. You have inspired me to monitor my heart rate more. My aim is to stay below 180 bpm... but my average is usually in the low 160's.

I'm ready for your marathon!

Unknown said...

Rock on... it's soooooooooo close!!!