10 Mile PR

I've been hammering the miles lately and I've been feeling pretty good. At the present moment, I'm not having any extreme fatigue or exhaustion from running quite a bit more than usual.

Yesterday was my usual long, hard workout day. I went out to Forest Hills (two mile road loop through some neighborhoods) and decided to run a 10 Mile Fartlek. I used my heart rate monitor and the goal was to run for 8 minutes with my HR between 88-92% of it's max (corresponds to about 85% of my VO2 Max). I would then jog easy until my heart rate returned to about 75% of it's max (about 60% of my VO2 Max). I would then pick up the pace again and once my HR got back to 88% of it's max I would start my 8 minute hard segment.

I knew I was pretty fit, but I was having to run VERY hard to get my HR back up to 88%. I also noticed that it didn't' take long for my HR to drop to 75% of it's max (which is a sign of fitness, but it sucks because you don't get much of a break). Ultimately, I was running 8 minutes with my Avg HR at 90% of it's max and 3.5 minutes with my Avg HR at 80% of it's max. I ended up cover the 10 mile distance (including the time spent with my easy jogs) in 1:10:29.... 7:03/mile. Which is an unofficial 10 Mile PR. It is a hilly course and I was very pleased with how it went. I warmed up 2 miles and cooled down 2 mile to give me 14 for the day. Good Day!

Today, I ran 10.5 miles easy around town. This run would not have been significant, however, it put me over 2400 miles for 2009.... which was a goal I set for myself about 2 months ago.