This morning I knocked out the first workout of the day. I got up before the family and headed outdoors to the cold. Today I have a run and bike workout. I decided to do the run workout first as I need to run outside. I know it works better for me to do that while everyone is sleeping. I also decided to run first as my run became my weakest link all season this year after the month of April. I want to make sure I am fresh for my runs so I can get my running back to basics.
My run workout for this morning was as follows:
Run 40 Minutes
MS: Steady run as MP/Z2/Steady out, HMP/Z3/Mod-Hard back.
For me based on my rough estimation after my watch failure during my 5K test my zones are
The workout does not seem that bad, but after one week into the Out Season I have come to realize that on paper the workouts seem easy, but in reality they are far from it. After a 3-4 minute warm up I picked up the pace to run 7:40 mile pace. This was not that easy for me because the hills tore me up. I also realized that my endurance is terrible. While running during the first mile I kept looking at my watch and seeing my pace jump all over the place. It took me a bit of time to realize that I needed to stop to adjust my watch to AVG Pace instead of current pace. So I stopped for bit to adjust. That helped a lot. I then had to stop for a restroom break. After that point I was good to go and was able to hit my marks.
My first mile does not show 7:40 pace, but the last .6 – .7 mile I was hitting my mark, but my warm up threw the time off. To adjust I ran 3 miles out which put me at 23 minutes and change. The the way out you can see mile 2 was faster and mile slower. This was due to the hills I was running.
I did stop for about 20 seconds before turning around to run 7:22 pace. This was a bit of a challenge as my legs were starting to fatigue and my asthma was kicking in. I was able to dial it in to almost perfect time splits of 7:21. During the last mile I had to pick up the pace to knock the pace down as I was hovering around 7:28 – 7:30. I did run a bit over 20 minutes to 22 minutes. I am still struggling with running for time and not distance. Being so close to the 6 mile mark I just had to run a bit longer to get 6 miles. I need to work on overcoming this, but I don’t think it is terrible if it is just a minute or two here or there.
The other thing I noticed is that my HR was much higher than the zones shown above. I need to look into this to make sure that this is acceptable. I am using data in all new ways and still learning so much.
I am glad I have this out of the way. My body has been sore this week with the training and doing core work with my girls basketball. I have been putting my girls through some tough core training with the use of a basketball. I know it works because I am sore!
Today I still have a bike workout to get in which I will do during the nap time of Ava and probably Amanda!
Tomorrow I have one more run workout and week one will be wrapped up. I will be recapping everything tomorrow.
Have a great weekend!
Nice work Aaron! When you’re running uphill, focus on HR and not on pace. If you are running a 7:40 pace uphill, you are in all honestly (physiologically) running something that could be 5-6min/miles. Or put your Garmin on Norm “Graded Pace” Flat runs = pace, hilly runs = HR
Cheers!