It was a beautiful day today. Full sun and 49 degrees! You know what the temp was when I went running last Saturday? 29 degrees. That's a 20 degree swing in one week people.... and global warming is a lie???... Global warming is real!!! And I have the data to prove it!!! In fact at this rate of global warming we can expect temperatures in the 160's by the end of April!!!... but I digress.
49 degrees, full sun, put on some shorts its time to run.
I had a 4 miler scheduled for today but decided that since the weather was cooperating so nicely I would switch it up and do the 11 miler I had scheduled for Sunday instead.
First outdoor long run of the year and longest of the year! I started out "easy", watching my heartrate, trying to keep in around the 140 BPM range. After the first mile I realized that I was running a 8:00 pace, not a tempo pace by any means but probably faster than long run pace, but the heart rate doesn't lie so I kept going.
I headed out into the countryside. The air was clean and fresh, at least until I started passing the dead raccoons... ahhh the smell of roadkill. There's nothing quite like a lung full of that. Oh well, better than concentrated gym member B.O.
Hit the 5 mile point at 39:00, one minute ahead of 8:00 pace. By now my heartrate was up to 150... still not bad though. I told myself I'd try to keep up the pace till mile 8 and then I'd ease it in... Oh the lies we tell ourselves while we run.
At mile 7 I came out of the countryside and back into the city. I was greeted by the wonderful smell of car exhaust. Yum!!!
At 7.25 miles I hit a monster hill (.4 miles long according to Garmin). This slowed my pace and upped my heartrate to 170. By mile 8 my heartrate had crept back down to 160 but I had lost some time and was now only 10 seconds ahead of 8:00 pace. Oh well, time to ease it in right? Wrong!!!
I heard somewhere that it's good to finish long runs at a strong pace so that you're body could adapt to maintaining speed when you're fatigued... So I went ahead and kicked it up a notch and sped up to a 7:30 pace, ending my run winded, tired, but satisfied. All in all, not as fast as I hope to be, but a lot faster than I expect to be considering it's the first week of my training cycle and my longest run in 5 months!
Any other smells that I enjoyed during my run; the smell of a guy standing on the corner smoking a Swisher Sweet and the old lady across the street, getting into her car, who was wearing way too much old lady perfume (funny enough, of all the smells I encountered on my run, this one was by far the worst... I literally had to hold back a gag!).
Overall stats: 11.01 miles, 1:26:17, 7:51 pace, HR avg 152, HR max 180
great run!
ReplyDeleteIf you focus on the distance now, the speed will come! Great run!
ReplyDeleteAwesome run!
ReplyDeleteWay to pick it up in the end...I was not doing that on my long yesterday...I was more like snail crawling!
eeeewwwwwww, whats that smell? lol. You crack me up man. At least the raccoon wasn't a pole cat. That would have really sucked. Your pace rocks man. So does your garmin do the heart rate thingy too? I am wanting to get one later this year. I promised my self one when I reached 1000 miles. You detailed your run in writing perfectly man. If you can run as well as you can write and keep people focused, you will be a sub 2 hour marathoner some day. Keep it UP!!!!!!!!!
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