Thursday, April 24, 2008

Easy Three Miles

As the taper period continues, the mileage is coming down considerably. I don't believe I have had a 3 miler on my training schedule in weeks (now that I check - it's been 7 weeks!), so running this distance was a piece of cake (kosher l'pesach...of course!).

However, the thing that was NOT a piece of cake was making this easy run an "easy run" - that is with my heart rate in the 70%-80% of max HR range. Perhaps I was still living off of the fumes of yesterday's speedwork, but I found it difficult to reign it in this morning. My average HR when all was said and done was 157 bpm - a bit high for such a short run. Luckily, my pace followed my HR - I ran at a 10:00/mile pace...my fastest "easy" runs so far have been at a 10:20-10:30/mile pace.

Perhaps I was running to the cadence of the music this morning? I had a collection of The Police on my iPod Shuffle - not exactly music that I would associate with a fast run, but the beat on some of their tunes does keep you going.

Being that some of my runs have been at a faster pace than I would have liked, my goal for this weekend's long run will have to be to run SLOW. I want to ensure I can reign it in when necessary - especially for the long-haul of 26.2 miles.

1 comment:

Rick said...

You've got the proper mindset, now all you have to do is execute. I found it hard myself to keep the reigns pulled in on the shorter runs and it is especially difficult at the start of the marathon in all the excitement with all the people taking off. It's a long haul though so, best to be conservative from the get-go. Be careful and mindful of your goal race in your remaining runs. ;-)