Back on Track

A comfortably hard run was called for today at a target HR of 150 bpm. Went to the CIT track in the evening. 1830 hrs on tuesdays and thursdays is reserved for Eagle AC which I joined at the start of the year so as to use the track and get updates from the club on road races organised in the Cork region. A colleague at work told me that she brings her children to train with Belgooley AC, who train at the same time, while she runs with Eagle. I followed suit and brought my daughters, Anbhthan and Safan, along to see if they would be interested in track and field. Ani had no interest while Safan stayed the course and went once a week until the summer holidays (now that she has no school she goes less often - figure that one out) While I use the track I have rarely trained with the Club. As I am not doing speedwork at the moment I use the track to warmup and stretch before heading out on a road run. Following a mile warmup I completed a 7.4 mile circuit which includes the 2.5 mile flat straight road giving a total of 8.4 miles. It started out rainy so I wore a jacket. I warmed up quickly and after 2 miles the rain stopped and I took off the jacket and carried it (better than suffering - well used to carrying water bottles on long runs). While my heart rate hit the mid 150's later in the run it never felt uncomfortable and I finished the run feeling good and wasn't bothered by the fact that the rain had come back. Following yesterdays over measurement I made sure the polar footpod was securely fixed to my shoe before heading out. The footpod measured 8.2 miles for this circuit last week. However I think the correct distance is closer to 8.4 miles and a check against the 22 to 21 miles markers left from the Cork City marathon on the Model Farm Road showing 0.99 miles confirmed this (I also measured the distance on Google Earth - 8.43miles) I did say that the footpod had been underestimating distance by about 3% which explains the discrepance of 0.2 miles between last weeks and this weeks measurement. Perhaps the larger shoe size has an impact. Following the circuit I warmed own for a further mile to give a total of 9.4 miles in 1:1:09 (07:33 pace @ 149 bpm avg)