This is a place holder post re my workout last night. I’m not sure what it was, but it was significantly better than my two workouts last week. (Ok, it could be that I was much better rested for this workout. ) I think the numbers were:
7 miles – 6:12 pace – 166 bpm
Through 5 miles my pace was 6:10 and my HRave was undoubtedly under 165 bpm. (As a reminder, 165 bpm is a sub-lactate threshold effort for me.) I was doing a great job controlling my HR and was running quickly. My HR drifted a bit from mile 5 through 6.25. At 6.25, I picked up the pace when a runner came up on my shoulder. We ran the next 1000m together. While my HR rose quickly with the increased pace, the effort was comfortable and controlled. I had no problem dropping to what I think was 5:45 pace. I’m fairly confident I could this weekend in good conditions and very comfortably run a 62-63 minute 10 mile.
I must keep in mind that the paces are raw paces from my Garmin and might slightly inflate the distance. Normally, I just use the raw data without much thought as I run most of my workouts on a clear enough track where I’m usually in the inside lane. Last night, the track was really crowded and I had to weave a bunch as well as spend time in lane 2. I don’t have the numbers in front of me, but I seem to recall that my workout distance was 7.2 miles or so for 28 laps of the track. I wonder if it was possible that I added 3% to my workout distance due to track congestion or whether this is primarily due to GPS running watch data point wander. With an accuracy of +/-15 feet, I’m sure this variation can add up over many data points. I’m not sure if the Garmin automatically corrects for this or if it is only corrected when I upload the data to Motion Based.
Regardless of the above noted possible data issues, this was a solid workout. All my other workouts have the same “issue” in that my Garmin may slightly over estimate my pace, but the noise/inaccuracy should be a relatively consistent, so comparisons should still be useful. I ran the same distance (7 miles) with the same HRave (166 bpm) both yesterday (9/19) and five days prior to that (9/14), but ran an amazing 15 seconds/mile faster.
It’s worth noting that I couldn’t breathe deeply during the workout without uncomfortable chest pain. During a Sunday morning trail run I fell hard on my chest – I initially thought I’d done some major damage. Unfortunately, I had a 1 oz. plastic vial with Succeed S!Caps in the left chest pocket of the Nathan HPL #020. While I’m not visibly bruised, the spot where I landed on is very sensitive to touch and pressure and is unhappy when I breathe deeply. I’m pretty sure I’ll live, but it did make controlled breathing difficult during my workout. I hope it’s healed some by Saturday’s race… though I have no intention of running hard enough to need to take deep breaths.
On the other side of things, my legs are not in the slightest bit sore today!
