Friday, August 11, 2006

Good plan, good execution, grade...A

Well, everything went right last night and this is a run I will remember. It would be ill-advised to try to duplicate this run or to compare any other run to this one. So, I won't.

Everything just came together. To start, I had a great massage yesterday. My therapist worked on my legs and calves and on that ankle and today, I woke up feeling great. My nutrition for the day included some egg whites, skillet potatoes, and watermelon for breakfast, a grilled chicken sandwich and fruit for lunch and a clif bar in the afternoon. Nutrition, check! I also drank plenty of water during the day. Hydration, check! This run also followed a full day's rest. Rest and recovery, check! Due to the late afternoon rain, I put off the run until after 7:30pm so the sun was on the way down and it was almost cool. Of course, cool compared to what? Anyway, it was cool-ER. Weather conditions, check!

Thursday's schedule called for a 40 minute tempo run. My tempo run last week was a measured distance, 1 mile warmup, 1 mile tempo, and 1 mile cooldown. This week I decided to do the workout according to Fit's instructions. Yes, James, I ran for time and not distance. Even though I wore my HRM, I did not set any zones or alarms or any kind of beeper. I just started the timer. Of course, retrospectively, I have the data to look at but I didn't really pay attention to the gadgets for this run. I just thought one thought, "you should never be sucking wind but feel if you went any faster you would be." (Trivia question for readers of this blog: Who said this when describing tempo effort?)

Stats:
10 minute warmup (Pace doesn't matter. It's a warmup!)
20 minute tempo run:
    Distance - 1.50 miles
    Avg pace - 13:20 min/mile
    avgHR - 161 bpm(82% HRreserve)
    maxHR - 168 bpm(89% HRreserve)
10 minute cooldown (No stats. It doesn't matter. I did run the entire cooldown)

The run felt really good. I was able to hold the effort described above for 1.5 miles. WOW!!! I really concentrated on easing into the effort after the warmup. I didn't just take off after 10 minutes like I did on Tuesday. In fact, it took me a good 5 or so minutes to settle into the increased effort. So, that was good. I really listented to my body on this one and feel like I learned a lot.

4 comments:

Sam said...

Great post, and I have no answer for you on your trivia question. Great run...keep it up!

Sam

Anonymous said...

Vic nails his nth run in a row. Streaker! Don't recognize the quote, looking forward to the answer ;-)

Steeeve

TX Runner Mom said...

WTG Vic! Sounds like an awesome run! I will have to catch up on your posts for the week since I've been out of town, but it sounds like you are doing fantastic.

Anonymous said...

Woo Hoo Vic! It is always great to have a fantastic run.

Keep up the great work.