I actually had one workout which specifically targeted heart rate zone 3. To translate that into actual pace and distance terms, the upper part of Zone 3 is probably the zone in which my marathon will be run in November. The good news from that workout, when I was running on flats, I was ticking over a pace in the low 7s.
This brings up the other thing I ruminated on while running this week. Dengue took all of this weight from me and I had been wondering if I’d see any performance gains. Well, I can comfortably say: I’m at least a minute per mile faster than last year at a similar point in training.
Here’s a chart:
For more detail, read on:
Monday: Day off.
Tuesday: Form work. Same workout as last week. Going to be changing things up this week though because of my Thursday workout. That brought some good news on the form front.
Distance: 6.79 miles; Time: 1h,0m,58s
Average Heart Rate: 154 bpm; Average Pace: 8:59/mile
Max Heart Rate: 174 bpm.
Wednesday: Tempo. This workout I wanted to spend an hour in zone 3. I warmed up with the form drill I’ve discussed previously and then picked up the pace. There was a bit of a challenge to keeping my heart rate high, because the course I chose was out and back with an 800 foot climb in the middle. Maintaining the high heart meant bombing the descent. That was fun.
Distance: 11.52 miles; Time: 1h,33m,27s
Average Heart Rate: 164 bpm; Average Pace: 8:07/mile
Max Heart Rate: 175 bpm.
Thursday: Endurance. Another heart based workout. This time focus on Zone 2. I threw in another wrinkle too. Try to maintain a high cadence throughout.
I went out and after 20 minutes I checked myself and discovered that I was turning over 180 strikes per minute. Checked again at 40 minutes and 1 hour, same result. High cadence, check. Next up: Lift up, not push off…
One goofy thing about this workout, I got home and the gate was wide open. Wandered around for a few minutes before realizing I hadn’t hit stop on the watch. Oh well…
Distance: 9.25 miles; Time: 1h,17m,50s
Average Heart Rate: 156 bpm; Average Pace: 8:25/mile
Max Heart Rate: 167 bpm.
Friday: Recovery. Life and work forced me to run this one on the backyard treadmill. Nataly and I ran around Friday afternoon buying stuff for Cuevas and by the time we got back, I deemed it a bit to dark to risk the roads around here. Certainly by the time I was done running, it would have been risky.
Laps of the backyard in zone 1.
Distance: 4.15 miles; Time: 45m,23s
Average Heart Rate: 135 bpm; Average Pace: 10:55/mile
Max Heart Rate: 147 bpm.
Saturday: Running Strength. I had this one scheduled as another form day, but I found myself surrounded by beautiful hills so turned it into an easy hill workout.
The roads around Cuevas (2 which I’ve run on now) feature long steady climbs. They aren’t too steep that running is out of the question, but they are steep enough that you know-for sure-they are there. Good for training strength on both the climb and descent.
Distance: 8.41 miles; Time: 1h,20m,33s
Average Heart Rate: 159 bpm; Average Pace: 9:35/mile
Max Heart Rate: 175 bpm.
Sunday: Endurance. Similar workout to Thursday, but this time in Cuevas. Big difference though, I was feeling the fatigue of the week built up and it took a very long time for my heart rate to “warm up” into Zone 2. I spent the majority of my workout in that zone, but every time the road went down, I cooled off quickly and found myself in zone 1 again.
This was complicated by the fact that it had rained for 4 straight days in Cuevas and the road surface was some sort of remarkably sticky and slick mud. Going downhill fast simply was not something I was willing to risk.
Distance: 12.44 miles; Time: 2h,1m,211s
Average Heart Rate: 154 bpm; Average Pace: 9:45/mile
Max Heart Rate: 166 bpm.
I’ll get another post up about running in Cuevas this afternoon while Deneb is down for his nap. Thanks for reading, and be safe out there.
J
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