7 Miles - 9/20

Based on the schedule, Friday was supposed to be the 7 mile run. However, I was travelling back home in the evening and never had a good chance to get the run in. The original schedule had Friday be the 7 mile run day, Saturday be rest, Sunday a 3 mile run, and Monday either a 10k race or an 8 mile run. So the long run this week is not like it had been in the past where the distance increases by a mile or two. Given that I was unable to run on Friday, I decided to do the 7 miler today, and do the 8 miles tomorrow, and have Monday as a rest day. I figured this would be good for a few reasons - one, it sets my long run day to Sunday instead of Monday (which is beneficial for its own couple reasons); two - in leiu of the long endurance run for the week, it seems like a 7 miler followed by 8 might be a good compromise for not increasing distance on a single run; third - the run I'm missing is just the 3 mile run - not a big deal.

I also did this run in the morning, which is something I am not used to - and it showed. Although my legs felt fine, I had a real hard time keeping my heartrate down to the 150 area. It wanted to sneak up to 160 when any incline was reached, or when I was going faster than what seemed like a laboriously slow plod. It occured to me that there were probably a couple reasons for this: the dehydration that typically occurs during sleep, and the fact that I was running about 12 hrs after my last real meal.

The last two miles I brought the dog along with me because he needed some exercise. The unfortunate consequence of this is that it inserted some breaks in between the run - to pick him up and stopping when nature either called or threatened to call him. Alas - no training plan is executed perfectly. Dems da' breaks.

Leg 1: 54:22 avg HR: 152 (5.5 miles without dog)
Leg 2: 9:06 avg HR: 158
Leg 3: 0:33 avg HR: 143
Leg 4: 1:36 avg HR: 140
Leg 5: 4:13 avg HR: 145
Leg 6: 2:18 avg HR: 159

Total Time: 72:08
Total Distance: 7 miles
Avg HR: about 154