Adarq.org

i was literally about to reply to the opposite effect in your journal, haha. pace is so affected by outside stuff: temperature, humidity, elevation gain, whether you're alone or with others, etc. one day's 5:15 is another day's 5:45; threshold pace on a chilly day or on the track is lower than a hot day or on a hilly route. your body's systems work together to produce pace, and i'm more and more convinced that it's a bad proxy for training load, for that reason. HR isn't ideal, either, but at least it's a measure of something important going on inside your body, rather than an output. speed/interval work could be an exception, but otherwise i'm gonna be focusing on HR.

over the weekend i looked at my last few months of training. coros app gives summaries over different time spans. in the past 16 weeks:

• average mileage: 50.52 km
• total time on feet: 70:39
• distance: 757.83 km
• HR average: 133
• 44% of km run under 133bpm, 36% under 149, 8% 150-158, 10% 159-169, and 2% 17+

takeaways:

• i'm ready to start pushing mileage up. 50kpw is a good baseline for a sub-20 5k, which i've run. and it's a good baseline to start pushing up to the 100+kpw that the plan i'm, uh, planning to follow gets to.
• my easy/hard split is smack on 80/20, which is good. but the easy mileage might even be a little too easy. i think it's worth starting to allow my HR to creep up just a bit on long runs, while leaving recovery runs (i.e., tuesday and thursday and sometimes saturday) very chill. anything up to 149 is in what coros describes as "aerobic endurance" zone. i probably won't push *that* hard, but more try letting HR hover around 140 instead of around 130, as i've been doing.
• summer is coming, so it's really time to start de-emphasizing pace outside of intervals and certain kinds of races.
  
• unrelated but, i need to really start forcing more consistency with strength training. i might bail on the gym membership, i'm not climbing enough to make progress anyway, and use the money saved to pick up a couple of DBs. once my wife and i move again, i'll put up the fingerboard she got me and use that for pull ups. hasn't seemed worth it in this house because we want to leave before it gets cold again.
  
• last but not least, i feel really good: excited about running, itching to sign up for some more races and see how fast i can get.
  

yesterday

- tempo run x 54:42, 11.13 km
-- warm up
-- 20 min @ HR 150-158 (avg pace 4:31)
-- cool down
got rained on during the warm up and cool down, middle part was dry. felt too easy, although HR was bumping up against the top of the target range. probably user error, i.e., me misunderstanding what my watch is telling me. need to switch the different range going forward.

which running backpack did you get?

- run 1:02:08, 11.20 km, strides 4 x 100 w/walking rest
right knee started bothering me just a little on the last stride rep.

- run 1:33:18, 16.80 km
another beautiful day. legs felt a little tired for the last ~6 km, kind of weird. HR never went over 150, averaged 134, so it's not like i was pushing too hard or something.

- run 54:10, 9.84 km, strides 4 x 100m w/ walking rest
lovely morning.

forgot to log monday's workout

monday

- climb x ~30 mins

- giant set
-- chest-to-bar pull up x 5,5,4,5 (missed last rep on third set)
-- paused push up x 5,5,5,5
-- DB SLRDL 25 x 8,8/leg
-- standing SL clamshell x 10,10/leg
-- pallof press x 10/side
-- some other stuff that i can't remember

today

- track intervals
-- warm up
-- ladder X min @ ~5k pace w/ 1 min rest [1,2,3,4,5,4,3,2,1]
-- cool down
tough one, liked it. pace between 3:47-3:56, except on the second 3 min rep when i dipped just over 4:00. HR on the reps in the low 170s.

really nice weekend up visiting friends in philly. slept extremely well last night, almost nine hours. got back early afternoon, had a smoothie, and headed out.

- run 1:42:06, 17.32 km
great route, kind of improvised my way through a trail i'd never been on before and know DC well enough that despite not really knowing where i was, i ended up pretty much exactly where i'd intended. especially after spending the weekend in philly, i really appreciate how many real trails there are inside DC, within easy distance of my front door. legs felt a little tired from about km 11 onward, oddly. nice day, a little warm but breezy and not too humid.