The last few days have been miserable as far as the weather is concerned, wind and rain, rain and wind, wind and rain … apart from the 2 hours when I was out running apparently, because I didn’t get rained on once. Maybe it was a miracle, but in all likelihood I will pay for this tomorrow, when gale-force winds and heavy downpours are in store again (together with the flood warnings that always accompany that kind of weather). Lovely. I’m already dreading tomorrow’s long run.
Tuesday saw a quick return to the hill for another torture session. I gave myself a few extra minutes, just to be sure to be able to complete the whole workout without having to worry about being late for work (again). I duly ran up that hill with those silly looking high steps for about 3-and-a-half minutes, only to be confused by my heart rate monitor, which gave a rather low reading of about 160. The same happened on the second repeat. Right, if I can’t get my heart rate up high enough that way, I’ll have to switch to bounding. The third repeat saw me doing 2 minutes of those high knees, then I switched styles. I tried to concentrate on a forceful push-off and extending my legs fully. I also noticed that for some strange reason I have a tendency of swinging my arms across my chest when doing that, so I tried to concentrate on correcting this as well. The good news was that the HR did indeed shoot up into the required 170s, the bad news was that I felt pretty much wiped out after that. I’m a sucker for punishment, and came back for a fourth time, but after 2 minutes of steep hill running and just over 60 seconds of bounding I gave up, the legs felt like falling off. As I said two days ago, there’s still room for improvement. I practically crawled the two miles home, but nevertheless consternation reigned once I checked my average HR for the workout. I was working my socks off, and all I have to show for is a 137? That’s the lowest heart rate I’ve produced in the whole training cycle, but rather than a nice easy recovery run it was a very tenuous hill circuit. I’m not sure what to think of that. Did I not work hard enough, or are those hill repeats primarily workouts for the muscles, and the cardio system simply isn’t taxed as much?
Whatever the answer, I was already looking forward to today’s run, just 60 minutes of joyful running on a reasonably flat course, without any interruptions like strides or goofy hill repeats. My legs felt better than following previous hill repeats (either I really wasn’t working hard enough, or I’m getting used to them), and the miles just flew by. I turned around after 31 minutes, at what I thought at the time was the 4 miles point. The return leg was even quicker; it took just a handful of seconds over 29 minutes for the same distance. Now the doubts started creeping in. Did I really run 4 miles in 29 minutes (7:15 pace) without even pushing the pace? That seems way too fast for such an effort. Sure, I wasn’t hanging around and ran at a good clip, but 7:15 seems too fast. I tried to remember exactly where I had turned around, but in the early hours of morning my brain had partially shut down (Shea had woken me early, cutting nearly an hour off my sleep, which didn’t help), and I couldn’t come up with a definite answer. Whatever the true distance, I put 8 miles into my log, but it might have been slightly less, and a question mark remains. Maybe I should get a Garmin after all.
20 Feb: 4 hill repeats, 1:11, avg. HR 137
21 Feb: 8 miles(?), 1:00:06, 7:30 pace (?), avg. HR 149
During the hill phases I've gone through I was reminded by Nobby Hashizume to not go anaerobic, as you'll get enough of that later on. Keeping the heart rate lower, in my opinion, means you are more able to do get a larger range of motion. The knees drive higher, you're able to extend your pushoff leg further, and you're able to concentrate better when you're not in an anaerobic haze. If you want to get the heart rate up, how about some 100 meter accelerations on the flats at the bottom of the hill? Just a though.
ReplyDeleteJust a thought, not just a though.
ReplyDeleteVery scientific all of this...and you're doing great with it!
ReplyDeleteI think your HR was just about where it needed to be. If you really want to get your HR going, you could always sprint up the hills; however, that would defeat the purpose. Most of us would give anything to do this workout and only average 137!
ReplyDeleteGarmin schmarmin. A few tenths here and there don't mean a thing come race day.
ReplyDeleteI am really impressed with your hill workouts.