Wednesday, July 2, 2008

A Tale of Two Runs

AM 5.52 miles, 44:39, 8:05 pace, Max HR = 150 Avg HR = 130, 35% Z3, 57% Z2
8:53, 8:15, 7:54, 8:14, 7:34

PM 5.01 miles, 39:58, 7:58 pace, Max HR = 159, Avg HR = 144, 22% Z4, 58% Z3, 16% Z2
8:21, 7:40, 8:01, 7:49, 7:58

In the morning I felt ok after a relatively light speed workout yesterday, and my heart rate reflects a comfortable run. In the evening I ran approximately the same distance, but I felt bad the whole way. I had a cramp in my shoulder and my rib cage and my heart rate was high the whole time. When I finished my legs were like concrete.

I'm not sure why the same run produced such different results, but I have some theories:
1) Dehydration -- I didn't hydrate well enough during the course of the day (hence the cramps and higher heart rate.)
2) Temperature -- Motionbased weather is down, but weather.com says the morning run was 76 degrees @ 87% humidity (feels like 76 degrees), and the evening run was 87 degrees @ 57% humidity (feels like 91 degrees)
3) Over training -- hopefully this isn't my body telling me I've had enough. I don't think so, but I'm a little concerned that I may have left my 5K out there. Let's see how I feel in 36 hours when I toe that line.

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TDLY - rest

3 comments:

Kevin said...

Like Lucho says, you need to drink a liter of water before you run. I don't do it enought either but I need to.

Lucho said...

Jonathon- Hydration has a profound effect on how you feel. Performance and the numbers aside. Hydrating well ups your energy and lowers your HR and BP. I have found with most of my athletes that they drink roughly 1/3 what they should be when they're training hard in the summer. The 1 liter before every run still probably isn't enough! It can take days to rehydrate after becoming dehydrated.
Have you considered having blood testing done to find your AeT? AeT is your physiological marathon limit and is the point that your blood lactate levels are at 2.0mmol.. Training at this intensity produces great results.
Keep up the good fight!

Jonathan said...

thanks for the feedback gentlemen. Lucho--Hydration is a battle for me because I actively dislike drinking water. But I'm going to take it more seriously going forward because I can feel the difference.

Regarding the AeT test, the first time I read your email I incorrectly assumed it was a static measurement of my marathon potnetial. I didn't wan't to know that, becuse it would be akin to knowing when you're going to die. Who wants to know their wall, because the incentive to push past that goes away? But of course the measurement isn't static and you talk about how to train in the right zone to increase your AeT.

My problem is that I'm cheap, and I don't want to pay for the blood tests. I've read of ways to plot heart rate against pace and determine when the relationship ceases to be linear. That inflection point tells you something, but I can't remember what it is and I can't find that online anywhere.

Any ideas for a cheap guy like me who wants to find his AeT?