Friday, September 30, 2005

Friday struggle - lower aerobic

Run type: lower aerobic
Distance 16.2 k
Average pace: 4:33/km
Heart rate: 135-140
Weather: 18 degrees & fine (5:30 am)

The struggle wasn't really the run so much as just getting out of bed and out the door. The cumulative tiredness through the week soon mounts up. I set about just doing a fairly easy run at a heart rate in the 130s. That was fine for a while, but by the 3rd lap at Kompar, going up the hill, I touched 140. So I pretty much stayed there or a little under and completed the rest of the run at that effort.

It's funny that I am calling a pace near 4:33 "easy". I've always thought of 4:30 as a benchmark for a pretty solid pace -- getting towards pretty hard work. Before I linked it to heart rate, I'd have said that it was no man's land; too hard for easy aerobic and too slow for lactate threshold or race pace. But when you simply look at heart rate, you know what is going on physiologically and the attendant pace is just whatever it is. And certainly I can finish a run like this feeling pretty relaxed and comfortable (especially at current temperatures). So I guess it is kind of recover/easy pace for me these days and I need to just accept that and get on with it.

2 comments:

CJ said...

So I'm not the only one struggling to get out of bed lately - its been a real effort to get up and out the door. Mind you, once I'm out I'm fine but getting out of bed is the hard thing lately.

Very envious of your recovery/easy pace - that pace will only happen inmy dreams!

Stephen Lacey said...

Well, one step back today (Sat). Heart rate of 140 was only giving me 4:40 pace. I'm not complaining -- maybe I was a bit premature in what I said yesterday.