Run Experiment - Lab #1...

What a great morning for a run!! It was foggy out, but you could see it was going to burn off.

I went with Leslie into the big city this morning. We were meeting her sister, Teresa, there and heading for a run along the river. They are training for the Sacremento Marathon in December so had 2:30 and 2:15, respectively, runs to do. I'd say I'm not training for anything, but I signed up for the Last Chance Half yesterday, so maybe I am??? I just figured it'd be fun to run for a couple of hours down by the river!

Not only was I going to run for a couple of hours...but I was starting an experiment. I want to run faster you see and IronGreg insists that the only way to do this is to run at a very low heart rate for all my runs. Hmm...but if I run at a low heart rate I end up running SLOOOW...so how does one get faster by running slower???

Well according to IronGreg, and as it would happen the IronGod Mark Allen as written in this months Triathlete Magazine, if you run at a low heart rate, eventually your pace picks up naturally as your body adjusts. You become more efficient, your pace increases, but your heart rate stays low. Hmmm...I was going to have to test this theory out to believe that it would work for me.

I've tried running at a lower heart rate before, but I still don't seem to be getting 'faster'. Or at least where I would notice. Hmpff. I've decided, however, that I would give this a try. It is going to take some time, it doesn't happen overnight you see, so from now on I will run with my Garmin to measure my pace, and my HRM. I'll record each run and see how things progress.

It would probably be easier to just believe the two IronGods, but no, I have to prove these things!

My goal was to keep my heart rate around 140 bpm. Not as easy as it would seem at the start, but eventually I got the hang of it. I hate to admit it, but the pace felt pretty comfortable to. A little slow, but not bad. Leslie and Teresa had a faster pace so they went on ahead.

I was looking foward to running along the river because all the trees have changed colours now and they are beautiful bright oranges, yellows and reds. Some of the leaves had fallen so I was wanting to get out there before the trees were bare. It was very peaceful running along there, listening to the river and hearing the leaves crunch underfoot.

There was some construction along the river, it would seem that part of the path had slipped into the river! Hopefully no one was running along it when that happend, yipes! They had some chain link fence up so you couldn't run through there. As I was running along the fence I was trying to see what happened to the path so had my head turned. I turned to look ahead and had just enough time to take a side step out of the way of a piece of fence right in front of me!! That would have been hilarious to see - me running right into a fence. BOING! LOL.

I have to say for the whole run I felt really good. It was a nice pace and it just felt good to be out there. Near the very end I could feel my right IT band a bit, and my left calve, but these are issues that I've had for a while and need to address. They certainly didn't hurt as bad as las week, phew! I finished the run in 2:01 hours and went about 15.8km. I managed to keep my heart rate around 140 bpm for the most part. It went up a couple of times, but not for long. My average pace was 7:30 min/km. I really hope that time will go down in the coming months. Only time will tell!

When I got back to the park where our cars were I decided that since I'd have time to wait for the other gals I'd play on the swings. When Teresa got there she said she knew I'd be playing in the park, haha. What can I say, I'm a kid at heart!!!

When I got home from the run I went to the gym for a quick upper body workout. My arms are still shaking to be honest, haha. It's making it hard to type, sigh. Soon they will be strong!

A great morning to start a great Thanksgiving weekend! Gobble, gobble, everyone!!