weekend Long Run

On sunday my legs felt pretty tired from attending a wedding the day before and going to bed at 7 am. Legs felt really heavy and I was thinking about not running 1h30, but just maybe bailing out at 1h or 1h15.
Eventually, I did the whole 1h30, but my heartrate was higher as usual. Also it was significantly warmer then the previous weeks (15C, compared to maybe 5C before).

in zone: 30
total time: 1:30:02
avg hr: 151
peak hr: 167
min hr: 59
total calories: 1431

recovery 1 minute: 152 - 118

My recovery time seems ok, but by just running a 'normal' pace, my hr went 160 uphill and slowed down to 150 downhill. Glad that run is over, next time I'll go to bed earlier :).

yet another tempo run

okay, so I have to confess, I didn't run the whole week.
I had my long run on saturday last weekend, and had to play bball with 1ste and 2nd string teams sunday morning (I hate when that happens, why can't some of my team-members show up for the 2nd string games as well, at least I won't have to play the full 40 minutes in the post).
bball games at 9.30 in the morning on a sunday morning are a pain in the bum!

So, I was gonna run on tuesday, but then got a call from my cousin that I didn't see in a while and he asked if I didn't want to come over for pizza and to check out his new house. He has a sheep (from the former owners) called Bernadette :).
Skipping tuesday is no problem as long as I run on wednesday. My mom called me asking to walk the dog since she had a day-trip to Paris and was gonna come home at 11 pm. So after work, I hurry to my mom's house to walk the dog, but it was freezing outside and I didn't feel like running in the cold (something I did for the last 2 months though). Wednesday night, hit the bar, got pretty drunk drinking Duvel, and went to bed way too late at 3:30 am.
Thursday, woke up at 9 am, felt like shit, surely no running today either.

So, Friday (today) comes, I had to give it an extra kick to make up for bailing a run this week (I normally run 3 times a week while not in marathon training), so I couldn't really make it up.
put on my heart rate monitor, and went for some tempo running in the park (1100m=1.1 km laps).

numbers:
---------

total time: 1:05:38 hr
hr in zone: 20 (again, mostly over)
avg hr: 160
peak hr: 176
min hr: 69
total calories: 1151

running to park: 1:19 (112 hr)
lap 1: 5:05 (145 hr)
lap 2: 5:08 (154 hr)
lap 3: 5:19 (156 hr)
lap 4: 5:16 (158 hr)
lap 5: 5:08 (161 hr)
lap 6: 5:20 (162 hr)
lap 7: 5:12 (164 hr)
lap 8: 5:11 (166 hr)
lap 9: 5:13 (165 hr)
lap 10: 5:05 (166 hr)
lap 11: 5:15 (168 hr)
lap 12: 5:27 (165 hr)
running back home: 1:34 (156 hr)
total: 1:05:38 (160 hr)

1 minute recovery: 155-129

Again, I felt pretty good at the end of the run and confident that I can hold this pace for 20k. Got two months to prepare to get better and run longer, but try not to overtrain (that won't happen if I only run twice a week like I did this week :)).

long run & tempo run with heart rate

Did last weeks long run with my heart rate monitor.
Since I did some tempo runs on friday, and played two games of bball on saturday, I was a little worried for my long run. My calfs were still feeling a little sore, but on I went for 1h30. Took it gently and my average heart rate was 145 if I remember correctly. I started to feel good the last 20 minutes of the run, so pushed a little (emphasis on little :)) to the end.

For Wednesday (after 2 days of recuperation) I thought it was a better idea to go for a tempo run, so I would have that out of the way for the weekend (I didn't want to do a tempo run on friday to have no juice in my legs for the weekend run and bball). So, I wanted to test my heart rate if I sustained a higher tempo for the whole run. I ran pretty strong for one hour, and I felt like I could have sustained that pace for some time after finishing, which is a good indication for my next half marathon race. Also, when in downhill, my heart rate fell, and when uphill it raised to 170, which is normal, I guess.
the numbers:
time: 1:00:01
recovery: 164 - 130 (1 minute)
in zone: 24 (I think I was over the zone for the rest of the time :))
avg hr: 162
peak hr: 177
min hr: 74
total calories: 1074

that's it!

easy run with the heart rate monitor

I've read somewhat further in the 'Advanced Marathoning' book. It really contains lots of good advice.
This weekend, I did a long run of 1h30. It went pretty well. At the regular turn around points in the woods, I was getting better splits without really pushing it, just by running normally. The downside was that I forgot my heartrate monitor. I really wanted to test it on a longer run, but I didn't want to turn back home just to get it.
Today I ran with the heart rate monitor on for an easy hour of running. Since the emphasize was on easy, I tried to stay around 140 bpm. I've got to say that I succeeded pretty easily. Now I know what kind of effort coincides with which heart rate range.
So, these are the stats:
in zone: 16 minutes
average heart rate: 141
peak hear rate: 156 (probably some steeper uphill section)
min hr: 66
total calories: 869
total time: 1:01:47
recovery: 138 - 121

This thursday I'm gonna try to reach my maximum heart rate in some 600m intervals.

Heart Rate Monitor

I bought a heart rate monitor on ebay. It's a Timex ironman 30 laps something.
I already took it for a test-drive last week at the gym when running on the threadmill, I think my average heartrate was 140, with a peak of 155.
Today, I went running on the road for an hour. It was around freezing point and some spots still had snow on the streets, so I had to be carefull. Normally today was a tempo run, but I didn't run since last week, because my gym membership expired, I got sick early last week, and then I got this sore throat for over 5 days, of which I knew that it would get worse if I went running.
So, I kind of kicked the pace a little without really going as hard as a regular tempo run.
Here are the numbers:
heart rate in zone (I think that's between 130-152): 28
average heartrate: 155
peak heartrate: 173
min heartrate: 72
total calories: 998

recovery 1 minute: 161 - 121

So, since my average heartrate is around 155, I guess I ran a little faster then my normal runs.
The recovery seems good to me. I'll have to check how this evolves.

On another note, I bought "advanced marathoning" by Pfitzinger. That book is somewhat considered a bible in marathon preparation, so I'm really looking forward to read it. Also, the book uses a lot of heartrate functionalities, so that will certainly come in handy.