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Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Trainer rides and tempo runs

I volunteered at the Mighty Magnolia on Saturday. It was tough watching the athletes. I wanted to be out there. The weather was beautiful. I think I could have competed well.

When I got home from the race I was a little bummed out. I decided to jump on the trainer and smash out a workout. I loaded up a difficult session. It would be 3 x 6 minutes at a challenging wattage. The recovery would be relatively short at 3 minutes. If you remember I was first successful with this workout at the beginning of the summer. I have since failed twice.

I killed the workout out. Yes it was tough but I was able to complete it. However, there were a couple of different variables. First, my heart rate monitor was not working. In addition, my Garmin malfunctioned. One of the buttons got stuck. I could not see my heart rate – not on my computer (hooked to the trainer) or on my Garmin. I was riding blind. I also decided to pedal at a lower cadence so that I could start to build some leg strength.

So I do not know how hard I was working but I was able to complete the session. Once again, I would not say that it was easy but it was achievable. I was satisfied with the effort.

On Sunday I had a solid run. I have been trying to add some speed into my workouts. I have a half marathon at the end of the month. I will be using this race to base my training for the next few months. I believe that my running is improved from this time last year and it should allow for me to build on this base.

Instead of running by pace I decided to mix it up and run by my LTHR. I had previously determined this level by my average heart rate at my last 5k (the pump and run). My LT zone was 175 – 185 beats per minute. I started out on my run at my easy pace – about 8 minutes per mile. I then picked up the pace and tried to keep my heart rate in the mid 170’s.

I ran the next 8 miles at this hard level. This level starts out comfortably hard and then slowly increases to hard. I tried to my pace and just concentrate on the heart rate and rate of perceived exertion. I continued along just running hard. My heart rate climbed a little bit as the run went on but I was successful. After the 8 miles at pace I slowed it down for the last mile. I completed the run on 1:10:24 for an average pace of 7:02. I have run 10 miles at 7 minutes per mile pace before – a couple of times. This can be hard but it is achievable – even in training. However, I was pleased with the 8 miles at speed. I completed the 8 miles with an average heart rate of 172 BPM in 53:46 (6:43 minute per mile). Now this was a training run and in a race situation I should be able to push a little bit harder and a little bit further. On the flip side, I only ran 8 miles – about 5.1 miles short of the goal. I have 20 more days to put it all together.

All in all, I am faster than a year ago but I still have my work cut out for me.

6 comments:

  1. Building Rome, I see. It's awesome to follow your progression. Your sharing certainly motivated me to work harder during my season....keep it up...20 days and counting

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  2. First off, I understand 100% on wanting to race when you volunteer. I think we have a disease or something haha.

    Alright, second, I wish we lived closer. We could probably push each other to be very good runners. Your paces are spot on with me. I hope your speed work (and sensible training regime) achieve your goal. This was what I lacked and got my goal the hard way... the wrong way.

    Next year is another story though.

    I hope that your workouts get you to a comfortable place on race day. Keep training smart.

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  3. Great job on the training. Reading posts like this from you and others in BloggOWorld help motivate me to keep pushing to get better and better.

    I sometimes find when I don't have my HR or Garmin that I am faster. I think we get hooked onto these numbers sometimes and don't push ourselves b/c we don't want to go above a certain HR or faster then a certain speed. Leaving the electronics at home and listening to my body has worked well for me in the past and it seems to have worked for you on the trainer.

    Thank you for sharing with us.

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  4. What do you mean by wattage? Is that what a bike computer displays? Not distance? I don't have one and am still quite a newbie you know, so just wondering. I guess I could use trainer tips in general - I am hoping to use mine inthe winter when I can ride on the roads. (what gear to set on, cadences, everything)

    Anyway. The 8mi run sounds great to me-the racing atmosphere will help too vs a solo training run.

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  5. James - very solid workouts. It is amazing at how long 3mins feels when doing the interval on the trainer but how short it feels when doing active recovery ...lol

    Great tempo run too. That is a wicked fast pace for a training run. Awesome work!

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  6. That's great that you can look back and see how far you've come, sounds like it's only going to get better for you!

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