Short(s) and Swee(T)

Nice Spring weather has FINALLY arrived and I hope it stays. Although I woke up at 5am with an allergy attack, it still doesn't matter. I eventually fell back asleep and then went out for my last Sunday run before next week's Pittsburgh Half Marathon. Can't wait! (To run it slow and aerobic...)

Today was another run much like last week so I though it useful to compare the heart rate based stats:

At a glance it looks like today my average heart rate was higher, and my pace was slightly faster. For some reason this run was tougher than the last one and I was never able to just cruise easily at a low heart rate. Could be the early allergy related wake up, or the addition of hills this week, or just life in general. My diet wasn't too good yesterday either, with just two meals, a beer, and some cake. Hmmm...

All the same, it was still in the right heart rate zone and that's something. The hill up Beechwood Drive was tougher than both yesterday's run and the one last week, as my max HR on that split (10/11) will attest. Oh well, onto the first race in nearly two years!

Might As Well

Since the whole idea behind this blog is keeping track of my running "pursuits" I feel I need to post about the Sunday run I had so that I can look back on it and compare in the future what I thought about it. Of course, the stats end up on Garmin Connect and all that, but I don't write any thoughts there so sometimes things get missed or forgotten.

In that vein, I ran a short LSD yesterday of just 12km. Two weeks out from the Pittsburgh Half Marathon and things are going well on the injury front (though my left knee tightened up after I ran around playing soccer and ultimate frisbee with the boys last Wednesday). I am mulling over ways to increase my mileage gradually over the course of the Summer and have purchased a good running backpack (at least I HOPE it's a good one having never tried it!) so that I can incorporate commuting to work on foot into that plan. I simply cannot figure out how to get my mileage up without running to and from work sometimes. As such, I will not start this until after Pittsburgh I think since the build up to this race has been steady and healthy and I don't really want to disrupt that. I might do it once though because I have an itch to try it.

But that short LSD I did this weekend went like this:

Once again, the HRM screws up in the first kilometre or so, but then it settles down and I was able to run in the low aerobic range for a bit. Near the end of the run I had to climb out of the Don Valley up Beechwood Drive, which is an almost kilometre long climb that gets pretty steep in the middle third. Naturally, my heart rate went up, but I felt pretty smooth on the way up and was pleasantly surprised at how easy this felt. Although the average pace is once again faster than the last LSD it is just slightly so due to either that hill climb or the fact that I felt a bit run down after a tough week at work. Also, I'm continuing to do the run/walk thing at a 9:30/0:30 ratio. If it ain't broke and all that.

Good times! Looking forward to the race. The Boston victims and their families, as well as all runners affected by the tragedy, will be in my thoughts as I return to "racing". Glad they caught the guy alive and that nobody else got hurt as they were hunting for him. What a senseless waste...

Moving in the Right Direction

Another day, another LSD. Longest one of this beginner Half Marathon training plan, which is also nice. I've been locked in on training based on heart rate to keep me safe and honest. Although this week I added an extra run, a short 6.4km on the treadmill on Friday due to a sore elbow keeping me off the weights for a day, I feel relatively healthy and that's a very good thing. So today I ran my longest LSD at 22.5km, waking up at 5:45am (though I was awake from 4:30am onward for some reason, just not able to sleep) on a Sunday to make sure I was around for Owen's first baseball practice of the season at 9:30am and not be absent for a good chunk of the afternoon.

In short, the heart rate is staying in the right zone and my pace is improving slightly with each long run:

Three more weeks until the Pittsburgh Half!