The plan yesterday was to do a mile tempo run. So, that's 1 mile warmup, 1 mile at tempo effort, and 1 mile cooldown. According to the Fit schedule, I was to do hills yesterday but trying to juggle that around kids, my wife's work schedule, and the Striders meeting, I switched Tuesday's and Thursday's workouts. So, the plan of attack...mile 1 was to be a warmup, <70% HRr. Then towards the very end of mile 1 and into mile 2, I was going to pick it up to tempo effort. The tempo mile would end and I would continue running but bring it back down to ~75% effort for the cooldown. Textbook
The execution - Very easy warmup mile, probably around 15:45 - 16:00. Even if the split was important, I did not have "auto split" enabled on my watch so the split time was not recorded. Now is where the mistakes began. Unlike my tempo run last week where I just ran by "feel", yesterday I was watching my HR like a hawk. I had set the HR zone to a range for this mile of 164-170. So, big mistake. As soon as I hit the mile 1 marker, the thing started beeping. So, I took off. It kept beeping so I ran a little faster. I wasn't feeling taxed early on so I thought, well, I'll just get it up to my range and then try to hold it there. Oh, I didnt' mention one thing. This was around 4:45 in the afternoon. Temp was 94 with heat index of 102. Poor execution! So, I chased the little beep until I got up to my range. This took about .25 miles. On a bright note, I kept it in that zone for the duration of the tempo mile. On a bad note, I was wiped out by the end and could not run/jog my cooldown.
So, my grade on this run - an A. I refuse to beat myself up because I didn't execute a training run as fast or as slow and I had planned. I had a good plan. I gave a very good effort. All I lacked was the experience, in this case, to know that 1) The heat can zap me, even if I'm staying aerobic. 2)Run in the cooler part of the day. If I have to run in the heat, take it easy, slow it down, and 3)Don't chase that little beeper thing on the HR monitor and don't be so quick to bring my HR up to whatever zone it's supposed to be in. Take my time getting up to target zone. Concentrate on feel and maintaining a consistent stride and pace.
The Strider meeting was a blast. I met a few new folks and caught up with some familiar faces. Fellow bloggers Steve and Bill were in attendance. Also, it was great to see my old friend and blogger Jessica. I sat next to a fine gentleman by the name of David. Very nice man. I got a lot of information on the upcoming Houston Half. There are a lot of volunteer opportunities at this event so run to the site, click on the Volunteers tab and sign up. NOW!!!
6 comments:
Great job Vic! That's why they call it training when you train, and racing when you race. It's all a learning process, no matter how long you've been at it.
You're a better person than me to run at that time of day anyway!
It was good to see you last night. It sounds like your training is going very well. Congrats! Keep up the good work.
Vic,
Yup, all good lessons. Ain't no way you'll catch me running at 4:45pm, no sir!
Other blogger notables in attendance were Jessica and the mysterious Pony. You may treat the latter as a trivia challenge, but Pony has had a tremendously active blog going for quite some time.
Steeeve
Great perspective on the run. It is way too easy to beat ourselves up for not making our goals or expectations, but you put in the effort and got some work done. Good job.
No worries ! Great effort in oppressive conditions. The Tuesday night track sessions for my TNT’ers and Ten for Texas runners have a 15 minute warm-up, the workout and a 15 minute cool-down jog. My group has been doing a 15 minute cool down walk. It doesn't take away from their workout at all. It’s summer survival in Texas.
Thanks, coach Bill. I was glad I finished the tempo mile and didn't feel too bad about walking the last mile. Truth be told, my HR, walking, was still probably around 60% HRreserve.
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