6 Mile Tempo

I've been hesitant to do any type of quality workouts since last Sunday's 12x1600m workout. That was quite taxing and I wanted to play it safe. I did a "light" quality workout Thursday morning. Consisting of 3 miles easy, 2 miles at my Best Aerobic Effort, and 2.8 miles easy.

However, I really wanted to get in a good long tempo run again today so I decided to run 6 Miles on the track. I used my HR monitor to keep myself at my desired training intensity, versus looking at my watch every lap. I enjoyed this method much more. I ended up running 40:18.4 for 6-Miles. I was quite pleased, especially with how comfortable it was. I won't go as far as to say it was easy, but I definitely didn't overexert myself to run this. My splits were 6:49-6:51-6:52-6:40-6:36-6:30 and my average HR was 175 bpm (~90% of max) during the duration of the run. This tells me I was running right in my Lactate Threshold training zone. This also tells me that my Best Aerobic Effort is somewhere around 6:40/mile (I'm beginning to realize the practical benefits of using a HR monitor as a guide and to get feedback on runs).

I knew I was in pretty good shape as all my runs have been going well. My quality workouts have not been overly difficult and I haven't really come across any workouts that I couldn't complete. However, considering how fast I was able to do the 12x1600m workout (giving the effort I put into it) and that I was able to run at my BAE for a full 40-minutes, I'm beginning to think I may be in better shape than what I've been giving myself credit for. Which is quite encouraging. I'm pretty certain I could run under 41-minutes for 10k, and wouldn't be surprised if I could get close to 40-flat. Which is something I didn't think I would ever be able to. Well see. I leave for Orlando Monday morning for 4 days. I hope the trip doesn't mess up my training much.