Folks, I’m just back from the track and headed out to two shindigs this evening, but this is progress. Tonight, I ran my second Hadd mini-test and while I feel that my training’s been shit, I’m improved my performance significantly with 20+ second gains at 160, 170, and 180 bpm efforts. It’s worth noting that my 21 second per mile improvement at the 180 bpm target was actually at 2 bpm less than during the first mini-test. It’s interesting that I improved a great deal more both relatively and absolutely at faster paces than at slower paces. Not what I was expecting … I wonder why that is.
Target HR – 140 — 150 — 160 — 170 — 180
Hadd Mini-Test 2 (July 13)
Actual HR – 139 — 148 — 159 — 170 — 178
Ave Pace – 8:14 – 7:18 – 6:29 – 6:01 – 5:35
Hadd Mini-Test 1 (June 1)
Actual HR – 140 — 149 — 159 — 170 — 180
Ave Pace – 8:22 – 7:34 – 6:57 – 6:26 – 5:56
For a description of the Hadd mini-test procedure check out my first Hadd mini-test post.
Update:
This afternoon I talked with former teammate, stud marathoner, and Hadd disciple, Ian Fraser. He told me that it’s not unusual for someone’s high HR paces to improve more than more than the low HR paces, especially for someone with a good distance base. Even if that’s true, I feel that I was and still am in crappy endurance shape. Over the six weeks between the mini-tests I did relatively few long runs and an equally or perhaps less impressive amount of total mileage while at the same time consistently getting in one or two fast workouts in each week. Having done next to no speed work in the preceding year or more, it’s not unreasonable for me to have improved much more quickly in that area. As I build from shit weekly mileage and a scant number of long runs over the coming months, I do expect to see SOME improvement in pace at 140 and 150 bpm.
