The past two days, I’ve played with my Garmin a bit to try out some different things while training.
Yesterday I set out for a quick 20 minute run, with 4 minutes each in Heart Rate Zone 1, HRZ 2, HRZ 3, HRZ 2, HRZ 1. I jogged around the parking lot at work, but because of the need to pay attention to my heart rate, I didn’t feel overly bored by the lack of scenery (it also meant I didn’t have to try to control my heart rate over the hills around our office). Interestingly enough, I hit exactly 2.0 miles in the 20 minutes.
Today I planned to do a workout I’d done with Meredith last year.
15 min. warmup
3 x (3 min fast, 3 min recovery + 2 min fast, 2 min recovery + 1 min fast, 1 min recovery)
19 min. cooldown
————
1hr 10 min workout
I was wearing my Newtons for the longest run so far, and they still feel “different”. When I peeled into the fast sections, I felt like I was able to turn my legs over much more quickly as my stride was smaller. Compared to my first rep from last fall, my times were pretty aggressive:
| pace | avgHR | maxHR | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3min hard | 6:59 | 178 | 182 | 2min hard | 6:30 | 177 | 184 |
| 1min hard | 6:00 | 167 | 183 |
…and then I decided that was enough.
So I headed back home in at an easy pace, and made it a ~49min / 5 mile run.
I’m glad I got the leg turnover, and felt my lungs burn as they did. It really does make it easier to push yourself when it’s in short bursts. It wasn’t a particularly god workout, but it was a start for me to think about trying to get some speed back..
