Thursday, April 10, 2008

Run for the Hills

It's not rocket science, this running thing. Run faster, get faster. Run more often, get more fit.

Still, it amazed me today that I ran up two hills without walking...two hills that easily would have kicked my butt just a month ago.

The schedule says I should do a 6-miler this week at 10:47. I did 5.46 miles and instead of watching my pace, I watched my heart rate. I was trying to keep it as close to 160 as I could. I found that it was consistently too low for about the first 3.5 miles. After that, it was easy for my to keep it at or above 160. :)

The stats:

5.46 miles
1:02:49
11:30 pace (this is right on for my long runs...maybe I should up the heart rate goal for these tempo runs?)
7:50 max pace

156 bpm
174 max bpm

1017 cal burned


I noticed that my calories/mile figure is back down in the 180s, after a couple of runs where it was well over 200. This was easily the hilliest run I've done in awhile (except for that 9-miler...that was pretty hilly too), so what gives? I don't know. I don't put too much stock in the number, anyway - especially because I could look three other places on the internet and find three distinctly different calorie counts given my weight, distance, speed and elevation changes.

So I am basically doing this same run (plus half a mile) this weekend. That seems very doable. Maybe I should shoot for the 10:47 pace this weekend, though.....

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