Well as mentioned two posts ago I was not sure where my new HR Zones would leave me on a long run and so early Saturday morning I found out. The plan was 15 miles and at a little after 5:00am I was on the road…seriously 5:00am on a Saturday morning! Well needs must when you wife has a yoga class at 8:00am right! Conditions were perfect, once the sun came out I could see that there was no sun, low cloud and cool temperatures, I made my way around my neighborhood, hitting the trails was not going to work and that could have taken me up to three hours plus the drive there and back.
I have to say there is some advantage to running in the wee hours in the dark, I really must look like a complete freak! Compression shorts, long compression socks and full sleeve tattoo arm warmers I was getting zero eye contact from the few other runners I saw but I am over 40 and I am all about function over fashion.
So two hours and change I was back home with 15.56 on the clock and an average pace of 8:36 somewhat off of the 7:45 I had mentioned before! I was 47% in the new Zone 2 which is good but 35% in Zone 1…a stark reminder to me to make your hard runs hard and your easy runs easy…the good news is I get to try it again on Saturday! Here are the numbers…not quite a negative split, I missed it by 48 seconds if you extrapolate it to 16 miles.
