July 21, 2009
Run: 6 x 800m Fast (6.59 mi)
I should have qualified my statement from Sunday — not posting individual runs unless I have something to say!
Legs were a little stiff this AM after Green yesterday. Weather is nice and cool today. Intervals on the plan today. So I set out with no headphones so I could dial into my watch completely.
Did the 1 mile warm-up. Heart rate raced up at first to 174. I was skeptical. Settled down.
Started my first interval and died about 1/3 through it. I was running all out and I could hit the HR target as prescribed at 172-180. I was in the 140-150 range. What the hell? Got my breath back and went again and got another 1/3 through the interval. I was in an all out sprint and I couldn’t get the target. When I do this workout with pace targets, I usually bolt and get down below the low end right away and try and hold it. This was unachievable. Finished that one and preceded to do the repeats. Only 1 pause in the next few about 1/2 way through. I probably could have just slowed up a bit and held on but I have trained myself to give up. I need to fix that. On interval #4, I decided to run it mostly uphill. This was better. On the flats, my lungs were burning and my quads too! On the uphill, the legs got to focus on strength instead of turnover so it allowed me to keep building HR without fighting to turn my legs over that fast. Got up into the 163 range. No way could I get to 170 or higher!
On interval #5, I ran 1/2 of it downhill just to see what that did for me. Got great speed but wasn’t hitting the HR target again. Finally flattened out and the HR started climbing. Back to the low 160s to end that intervals.
On the final interval, I had a bit of uphill. Held strong but again — 163-ish.
Did my cool down and came home.
Now, what was the deal? By all calculations, my max HR should be in the 180s but there is no way I could hit that. Hell, I am not even sure that if a tiger was chasing me down for his lunch today, that I could have gotten in the 170s. So is this just lack of training? If I keep doing intervals like this (HR instead of pace) for a few weeks, will my HR max start going up? I could see big improvements on the horizon if so. Given I have 20+ HR beats of room that I am not even entering into.
Lastly, I found myself belching again today. It was the intervals. Running that hard makes me breathe hard and I think I basically “eat the air”. My lungs are full or something and the rest goes into my stomach — belly breathing? So then when I slow or stop, I start decompressing. If I don’t get the chance, it starts to hurt. Not sure what to do about that one right now.
On the flip side, I know there were pauses, but those were my fastest intervals ever I think.
View my GPS data.
Thoughts?
