64°, NW 4 mph, 85% humidity, DP 64%
Another beautiful morning, although I did feel chilled when I woke up and made my way downstairs. Whereas yesterday I went out in shorts and a sports bra - no tank (a first for me - it actually forced me to tighten my abs, dare I let it all hang out!), today I covered up because of the chill. I put a cap on too, to help limit squinting from the sun. My face felt more relaxed, and I thought the rest of me did too.
I turned off a great deal more of the notifications from Runmeter since I wanted to listen to more of a podcast uninterrupted. Instead of reporting every quarter of a mile, it reported every mile, just average pace (not current), average heart rate, distance, and run time. Runmeter would intersperse those mile notifications with alerting me to when I went over my target heart rate, and when I came back down into it. I was stressing out much less about how low my pace was then - and just enjoying the run. And boy, I sure enjoyed it. Although, it's amazing how it's feels so strange to re-focus on a different aspect of performance when you've been focusing on just one other thing (pace) for so long.
The bottom line here, is that again, I had no idea I had reached 5 miles. I was about 3/4 of a mile away from home when the program told me my workout was over. WHAT? My effort was so controlled, and I was so relaxed and fresh, that I was not anticipating ending the run. I'm also starting to get a feel for what 143 bpm feels like. I believe I'm starting to run based on perceived exertion.
Although I can't believe that things are working this fast, when I compared this run with my last, I've run 2 miles longer, at a 30 sec/mile faster pace. There must be another explanation, but I don't know enough to make the correlation.
Miles Avg HR Avg Pace Time
3 144 12:49 00:38:45
5 143 12:12 01:01:26
So, according to plan, tomorrow is a rest day. Tuesday morning I'm to run 1 mile at less than 65%, 1 mile at 80%, and 1 mile at less than 65%. And that's a 'hard' day. Granted, I'm using the novice plan, but I chose to start with that only because I've been deconditioned. The book states that I can switch up to the intermediate level after a minimum of two weeks in the previous plan if need be. Because I'm pretty sure I want to do the Cow Harbor, I anticipate doing just that. As of today, there are 2430 runners registered. I have another 2 weeks before the rates go up.
Run strong, everyone!
I used phone apps when they first came out to "talk" to me about my performance, listened to BPM-specific music or podcasts when running. After a while, I decided that I enjoyed ambient noise more (plus I felt it was safer to run without earbuds). I also appreciated that I could check my performance on my Garmin, or not, instead of hearing it every minute.
ReplyDeleteI hope you do run CH. It's a great experience, just being part of the pack feels like something special. I hope you get to your optimum HR/pace ratio soon.
Thanks, ER - I had stopped listening to music a while back, now I guess I'm into listening to podcasts. I find though, that at times I stop paying attention for one reason or another. I don't know if it's running at a slower pace, the podcasts or what - but the time seems goes by so quickly now. Weird.
DeleteI'm really leaning toward running CH, as I need to race before my registered half in October. I've got to forget about PR'ing though, and just run it.