Thursday, February 23, 2006

Running at 10:17 min/mile!

Woohoo...last night I had one of the best runs ever. Instead of running with a HR of 140, I run with 150. Oh it feels much better. Along the whole run, I could feel I am moving faster. I always run the same route. Places where I normally take an hour to get to, it took me 50 min. In fact, I had to increase the route by cirling around the block b/c I am running faster than normal.

My mp3 player died half way. My gel once again got stuck in the flask. My left ankle was hurting. It doesn't matter. I was flying along. My plan was to run to 2 hr 10 min. I stopped at 2 hr 8 min. My left ankle was hurting too much. Gotta make sure I had good form when I am tired.

The night was amazing. I would look up from time to time and felt the vastness. The feeling is incredible. It is like I am in my own world.

Now for the exciting part...number crunching :)

Looking back at my 10 k race last Nov. I did 10 km in 50 min. That's translate to 8:02 min/mile. My HR was averging about 180. My LT is around 175. So I am in anaerobic mode.

For the past 3-4 weeks, my long runs were 12 min/mile. My HR was 140. I am in Zone 1.
Last night, I ran a 10:17 min/mile with a HR of 150. I should be in Zone 2.

So what does all this mean? Well, first I am using this as a baseline for my future long runs. The data I collected last year is not very accurate as I did not stop the HRM when I hit red lights. This time around I am trying to be as accurate as possible.

If I can run 12 min/mile with 140 and 10 min/mile with 150, how fast can I run with a HR of 160? 170? 175 (my LT)?

I have before ran a much faster pace than 10 min/mile. I am happy b/c I have ran this with a much lower HR. Preceived effort is about a 6. With no data to back up, I still feel my economy has been increasing :).

Well that's that. Going to do some hill training this Friday. My left knee experienced some sharp pain. I don't know when or where but at times there is a sharp pain below the knee cap. It happened three times last night out of the blue. I figure this is due to:

- bad form at the end of my run (I was focusing on my cadence and must have drop my form [dragging my feet])
- worn shoes

I don't think it is a big problem. Probably by tomorrow or Sat it will get well.

13 comments:

Anne said...

Great run, well done! :-)

:) said...

Nice job, buddy!

Trisaratops said...

WOO HOO!!!! Great run, Cliff!!! :)

William said...

Way to go. Keep it up. Two weeks till you race.

Stick with what is working Cliff and stretch those legs.

Anonymous said...

I love it when you can actually feel yourself going faster.

You may wanna look into the pain you're feeling though, heck, try some yoga, best thing I ever did was start doing yoga.

Steven said...

I echo what Jessi said. Your LT will change as you become more fit. And then you'll become faster. And they build upon one another. Remember what I told you via e-mail recently about just running faster. You can see it beginning to work with you.
Congrats.

Papa Louie said...

Thanks, Cliff for the info on sports drinks. Good workout! Keep it up.

Hilda said...

Fantastic to watch how you are growing!!

Hope you recover soon from this pain, strange it hurts while running.

Battman said...

There's no better feeling than human powered flight! Rock on!

Mike said...

Nice! Assuming your LT is still 175, your Z2 HR would range from 149-158 (according to Friel's Bible). Looks like you can give yourself a couple more heartbeats on the upper-end! Keep pushing!

Papa Tweet said...

Looks like someone's been doing some reading. Way to be. Don't you just love those runes when everything is clicking. I just hope I feel that good on race day.
Benny

TriDaddy said...

I did my first two months of base training at 140 or so and decided to start this third month at 150 without really knowing why. WHy did you bump up to 150?

Rae said...

Great run! Hope the knee is behaving!