A New Zone

Monday I found myself feeling quite well for being 24 hours post medium long run. My legs felt decent and my breathing was under control. I gave myself an easy day and I kept the heart rate as close to 125 bpm as I could. On single track at that heart rate my pace for the entire run averaged near 9:20/mile pace. I'm starting to move my "recovery" runs closer to an hour and should be there in a week or two.

Total: 50:21 5.4 miles HR= 126 bpm ave.

This morning I allowed myself to move up a zone in training. Most of my runs have been feeling very good and well under control. For this morning I put myself up at least 10 beats with a ceiling of 140 bpm. It's amazing how much faster you can run when you allow yourself to go 10 bpm higher in heart rates. There were times this morning where I actually wanted to slow down because I enjoy the low HR runs so much but I realize it is time to step up a bit and soon I will be doing structured workouts. By the end of the hour my legs were feeling the increase load and I was ready to finish. In the end, it sure felt good to run faster on the trails and by completing the hour at that pace I realized that my fitness it getting ready to make a jump.

Total: 1:00:56 7.2 miles HR= 133 bpm ave.