A walk in the Park

Two more ten milers in the park yesterday and today but at different efforts. Wednesday mornings run was very much a recovery from the HADD test the night before. I felt very sluggish, especially for the first few miles. My legs loosened up after a while but the run was always at a reasonably low effort. This morning I increased the effort with the intention of running 8 of the 10 miles at a target HR of 150 bpm. After the warmup mile (08:15 pace) and stretching I increased the pace and my HR steadily rose into the 140's. I settled on a pace that I thought was at the right effort but as the miles passed my HR still remained in the mid 140's. It seemed like I was stuck in the same gear and I felt that I couldn't change up without a significant injection of energy (energy that I was not prepared to expend just to nudge the HR up a little). I complete the 8 miles at an average pace of 07:16 (avg HR of 146) which I was pleased with. For a similar run on 31st July my average pace was 07:21 over the 8 miles (avg HR of 150). However that run was on a warm sunny evening after a heavy lunch. The 07:16 pace is somewhere between my half marathon and marathon pace. I certainly could have kept going for another 5 or 6 miles. Wed 15th Aug - 10 miles in 1;22:53 (08:17 pace @ 131 bpm) Thur 16th Aug - 10 miles in 1:14:38 (07:28 pace @ 142 bpm - 8 miles @ 07:16 pace & 146 bpm)