The Flow

Another week, another evaluation. Is it just my advanced age or is time really flying?

Following the twin storms last week the temperatures tumbled, just when I thought I was more or less done with winter. It's now bright enough in the mornings to leave the headlamp behind but it was cold enough the freeze the fingers inside my thin gloves on Monday.

Never mind, I like it cold. I just don't like cold rain showers - which, of course, were in store a couple of times as well.

I think 9 miles on the treadmill were slightly easier on the body than 9 miles on the road because the legs and the numbers were both surprisingly good on Monday. Tuesday was different, though at least the legs weren't quite as sore as the shoulders after the yoga teacher had let her sadistic streak shine through. It was a bit surreal, though - on the way to class I was listening to Queens Of The Stone Age's Go With the Flow, only for the teacher to announce that today we were going to try out "flow yoga". I'm not normally subjected to premonitions. Anyway, Tuesday's run was almost exactly the same pace as Monday's but with the HR 4 beats higher. I reckon the yoga had added 2 beats and the biting wind another 2 but that's just a wild guess.

And then it was evaluation day again. Early in the warm up I saw the HR in the 130, which I had not seen in a very long time, but of course I then had to raise it for the eval itself.

       
        Mile 1    6:58   HR 161
        Mile 2    7:06   HR 161
        Mile 3    7:12   HR 161
        Mile 4    7:06   HR 161
        Recovery to HR 130: 46 seconds

I'm getting a bit quicker and the 4th mile looks pretty good, though I can't quite explain why the 3rd one was so much slower. Actually, the pace during the 4th mile came as a major surprise because I had definitely started to feel the effort by then, something that's not usually the case during an eval. The recovery time to 130 was rather slow, probably reflecting the same issue. But, all in all, this is pointing towards improvement.

I think I'll move the evaluation back to Thursday in the coming weeks. The legs weren't quite there yet and I'm sure they would have been perfectly fine had I waited until tomorrow.

27 Feb

7 miles, 55:20, 7:54 pace, HR 144

28 Feb

7 miles, 55:25, 7:55 pace, HR 148

1 Mar

8 miles, 1:01:28, 7:40 pace, HR 152

   incl. 4 mile eval: 6:58, 7:06, 7:12, 7:06; 46 sec recovery