After 5+ miles easy yesterday, my legs felt peppy and ready for something a little faster but I wasn't quite ready for an all out workout, so I decided I'd straddle the line and see if I could run something in the 7:30 pace range without working too hard.
Heading out the door, I could tell the run was going to go well. The legs just felt good and my turnover was up (179 avg cadence for the run). Hit the first mile in 7:32 and followed that up with 7:18 and 7:19 for the 2nd and 3rd. I focused on attacking the hills and driving with my knees and keeping it relaxed the rest of the time. Mile 4 the pace dropped to 7:34... I didn't feel like I put in less effort but this mile is always the slowest on this course. It might be a gradual uphill, although I don't really perceive it or maybe it's just because its not quite halfway through the run and kind of flat and exposed. Picked it back up mile 5 and 6 and ran 7:20 and 7:21. Mile 7 I opted for the hilly path and dropped the pace down to 7:09 which I held for Mile 8 as well... then kicked it in for .22 at sub-6 minute pace to make the run over 1 hour.
FINAL STATS:
1:00:03
7:18 pace
A few random thoughts:
- This is probably one of those hard but not too hard runs they warn you not to do everyday. Because they're too easy to provide great stimulus while still being hard enough to wear you down.
- Still, this was fun because I got to run sub 7:20 pace and it actually felt easy
- When I put my 5K pace into Mcmillan calculator it says my easy pace should be between 7 and 8 minutes... 7 min pace still seems pretty darn fast to me for staying "easy" but I'm closer than I've been previously.
- "easy" is totally subjective and also "easy" for 8 miles is probably different than "easy" for 15 miles or 4 miles.
- My HRM has totally wonked out... it had me at 186 at one point and wasn't correct for the entire run. I finally gave up and bought a new one.
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