Ran 6.5 miles in HRZ2 the other night. Although I'm still pretty slow, my pace was 30 sec per mile faster than last January's half marathon race pace. The big difference though? My average heart rate was 40 bpm lower than during the half. Hopefully that translates to a much faster pace in next January's half.
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Thanks everyone. :)
Mike, I've always enjoyed the runs, even when I started running again last November and a 16:00 pace was the best I could manage for distance. Honestly, unless I step back and look at the numbers, it is difficult to really appreciate the improvement instead of dwelling on how far I have yet to go.
Running in HRZ2 still feels slow and makes me impatient even though my pace in that zone is 3 min/mi faster than it was August. (I've gotten much better at running slowly!) Tonight I finished a 40 minute run at a 10:45 pace with an average HR that was 30 bpm lower than it was during my 13:20 paced half-marathon, yet the idea of maintaining a 10:00 pace for 13.1 miles still feels somewhat impossible. I've got a bit of IT band pain, and I'm not where I want to be with cadence or knee drive.
But all of those things are why I need to keep practicing... keep running... keep improving... keep moving forward. I've got some lofty goals, and January's half-marathon is just the next stop on my TCI journey.
Your dedication is inspiring, thanks for sharing.
Physically, it looks like you have improved tremendously. How are you feeling? Hopefully you enjoying the runs so much more as well. Even if you don't hit the time goal, you know you are hitting your own TCI when you catch yourself grinning from ear to ear during your runs.
I'm currently 15 lbs lighter than last year (and 30 lbs lighter than when I started running), so hopefully that helps too. :)
Yep, running the Celebration Half Marathon again on January 25th. I went into last year's race ill-prepared thanks to a knee problem, but I have that injury to thank for leading me to "Born to Run" and the TCI. (The knee problem was largely my own fault due to ramping up too fast; apparently couch to half-marathon in 13 weeks is not a great idea.)
I'm confident I'll have a big improvement over last year's stats (2 hr 56 min via 30 sec run / 30 sec walk ratio; 13:20 min/mi; 173 bpm avg HR). My last mile time predicts a half time of 2 hr 16 min. I think my goal to nail 10:00 min/mi is realistic; my TCI for this race is to be under 2 hrs (and I think it'd be totally awesome to knock an entire hour off of last year's time).
WOW - this is amazing and might take the cake for Cool Impossible improvement!! Are you planning to do the January half marathon again in 2015 for comparison?
Thanks for sharing, anyone else have great stories like this?