The Home Stretch

Keeping this blog has made me see that I am lame. :) By that I mean that I short myself a lot. I don't do runs that should be done....I run fewer miles than I'm slated to run...and I don't push myself hard enough.

Instead of 12 miles yesterday I did 9.65. I decided I didn't want to run more than 2 hours, and that I was going to do a hilly run, and that dammit, it was Mother's Day and I didn't want to spend the whole day jogging around Vermont, sweating.

The stats:

Total time: 2:00:07
Total miles: 9.65
Total pace: 12:27
Avg HR: 150
Total cals: 1773

Mile 1: 11:29 139 bpm
Mile 2: 11:30 150 bpm
Mile 3: 11:50 153 bpm
Mile 4: 12:01 152 bpm
Mile 5: 12:40 157 bpm
Mile 6: 13:41 152 bpm (potty stop)
Mile 7: 12:19 147 bpm
Mile 8: 12:44 152 bpm
Mile 9: 13:51 149 bpm
0.65 m: 12:05 151 bpm

To review, my heart rate on long runs should be no lower than 151 bpm and no higher than about 164 bpm. But I just seem to get worn out before I can get my heart rate up where it should be. I'm not sure what this means, other than I need to get in better shape. :)

On the bright side, I felt good until the end, when I started to get sore....I only stopped twice on hills (and there were a LOT of hills, and some of them were STEEP)....otherwise I didn't stop at all (except for the potty stop)...and I saw some gorgeous views of the Vermont countryside.

I went back to my training for the fall half marathon...and I was out there running more miles. I have been very lazy about running if it wasn't on my "plan," even though the plan specifically says to cross train two days a week PLUS do the three days of running each week. Last week I worked out twice instead of five times....I actually don't remember the last week I worked out four or five times! And that's not good.

But...my last long run for the fall half was 10.5 miles at a 13:11 pace. So if I go by that, I'm almost a minute ahead of my fall training. And I finished my fall half in an 11:40 pace. So there is a lot of hope!

Now, I want to work out several times a week but also do enough tapering that my body is raring to go come May 25. This week calls for repeats, a 3-mile tempo and a 6-mile long run. I am going to add in a 3- or 4-mile easy run, too.