Thursday, July 30, 2009

45 minutes - 7/30

Today I did another slow and easy run. I wanted to make sure I would be as ready as possible for the 23 miles coming up this weekend, especially with the left knee soreness.

Total Time: 42:12
Total Distance: 4.3 miles
Avg HR: 143

I started out purposely slower than I normally do - normally I'd start out at a comfortable feeling pace, which would put me at about 8:30 for the first mile. However, today I did the first mile in 9:30, as I actually had the discipline to keep from going to fast out of the gate. As much as I know starting slow is better, I often start out faster than I should.

I felt like it made a difference (well, duh!) - as I was able to very comfortably keep a 9:30-10 min/mile pace throughout the entire run, which kept the average HR low. By contrast, the last run a couple days ago saw an average HR of 153, and an average time of only 20 seconds/mile faster.

So, below is the breakdown of the mile times and average HR for that mile:
Mile 1: 9:22/129
Mile 2: 9:53/145
Mile 3: 10:12/146
Mile 4: 10:11/148
Mile 4-4.3: 2:32/149

Also, the soreness in my left knee didn't appear until around mile 3.5 - and it was definately less intense. If before it was a 6/10 on the annoyance scale (maybe a 3/10 on the pain scale), today it was maybe a 3/10 on the annoyance scale. The other difference was that once I was done, it was gone - whereas the other day, it took a couple hours after the run for the soreness to go away.

No comments: