13 mile run - 5/10

This weekends run was to be 13 miles. Since I had already done 2 miles in the triathlon in the morning, I had a couple options. I could either put off the 13 miles until the next day, or I could run 11 miles on the same day. I didn't want to run an extra 13 miles (in addition to the 2 miles) because I didn't want to impose that much extra stress onto my knees. The program I'm following has an increase in mileage of 2 miles every other week, up until the long slow run is 15 miles, at which point it adds 3 miles every 3rd week.

As it turned out, doing the triathlon in the beginning part of the day helped keep me from going too fast on this run. My legs still a bit tired from the more anerobic exertion earlier in the day, and still feeling the awkwardness of a bike-run workout, it was pretty easy to do one of the major components of the Galloway running program - walk breaks.

Since the whole entire point of these long runs is to build aerobic capacity and inrease physical endurance (Galloway even says that you cannot go too slow on these runs - suggesting a speed 2 min/mile slower than a normal run pace), taking a walk break now and again is definately recommended. Having some degree of familiarity with taking walk breaks thanks to the interval runs, and todays run being pretty much the longest distance I've run (it IS a half marathon distance, afterall) - it made it easier for me to put any ego aside and just do the mileage.

So, from the start, I ran a pattern of running for 8-11 minutes, followed by a walk break for 1 minute. After finishing the first loop of 6 miles, I ended up taking an 8 minute break - most of it was walking back to the house to drop off my gatorade bottle and get a refill. I then set off again, doing my normal 5.25 mile loop. I kept the same pattern throughout, and I think I found the mental challenge of the run eased a bit with the walk breaks. Towards the end, knowing I just had to do 2-3 more running segments was a lot easier to swallow as opposed to knowing I still had an entire 20-30 minutes left.

Total Time: 2:02:11 (includes the 8 minute break)
Total Distance: 11.25 miles
Avg HR: 153 (average over the entire time)

My HR above is a little deceptive. Although the walk breaks helped bring my HR down, I think my body was already in somewhat of an anaerobic zone from earlier in the day. I think that kept the HR a bit higher (around 160) than usual for these runs. Compared to the last long run of 11 miles where my avg HR was 147, the numbers seem to support that idea.