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!