6 x 880 - 9/17

Time for the weekly speed workout. Like last week, this was comprised of 6 x 880's. Last week, I ran these sets at a local track, and did a slow jog for the 2 minutes rest period in between each set. Since I'm not home this week, I opted for a 1/4 mile stretch of straight and flat road bounded by cross streets near the hotel, and ran up and back for the 1/2 mile distance. I also decided to walk for the 2 minute period to get my HR down a bit lower.

Before I set out, I put on the HR monitor to get a more accurate reading of my resting heart rate. I had been going with 65 over the past few weeks, but there have been times recently when I've been sitting down, and it seemed to be a bit slower than that. Apparently you are supposed to obtain resting heart rate when you've been lying down for 20 minutes or so, but I didn't wait that long. After about 3-4 minutes, the lowest reading was 50 bpm - so I've updated the HR post with the new training zones. The overall effect is at the low intensities, the HR drops by about 6 bpm, and scales proportionally up to the high end, where the 95% intensity is less than 1 bpm difference.

Anyway - for today's run, I decided to build up to an avg HR of about 175, and let my speed be what it would be. I felt like I wanted to push myself a bit more then last weeks speed work, and I was curious what my endurance at that HR (which turns out to be at the 90% intensity rate) would be.

Here it goes:
Lap 1: 5:07 Avg HR 134 (warmup)
Lap 2: 3:09 Avg HR 170 (end HR 175)
Lap 3: 3:20 Avg HR 168 (end HR 179)
Lap 4: 3:24 Avg HR 170 (end HR 179)
Lap 5: 3:41 Avg HR 167 (end HR 175)
Lap 6: 3:47 Avg HR 166 (end HR 175)
Lap 7: 3:39 Avg HR 166 (end HR 175)

Total Time (excluding warmup and rest): 21:00
Total Distance (exclusing warmup and rest): 3 Miles

So, like last week, the speed tailed off as the workout progressed. Also, I'm a little surprised that the avg HR ended up in the high 160's as opposed to the low 170's. It seemed like the last 2/3 of each 880 had the HR above 170 - but I suppose perhaps the walking rest, where the HR lowered to about 120-125, vs the jogging rest last week (where the HR lowered to 155 or so) could account for that.

Regardless, for the same distance of 3 miles, I was able to shave off almost a full minute.