HADD Revisited

Monday morning saw me out at 0600hrs to get 11.4 miles in before the morning chaos began. This was a steady run at a reasonably easy pace throughout. I brought a headlamp to guide the way through the dark unlit mile on the straight road - the sky was brighter than usual at this time of the morning so there was no need for the lamp. I tried it on for good measure and it appeared to work quite well. No bobbing head of Paula Radcliffe although I wish I had her pace.

.
I completed the run in 1:30:49 (07:58 pace @ 133 HR)
.

This evening I completed my third and final HADD test before the marathon. I had been wary of completing it as my legs felt tired, heavy and ever so slightly achy all day. I decided early on that I would not complete the 6 laps of the track at the highest heart rate (170 bpm) as I did not want to tempt injury so close the the marathon, especially given my recent injuries and I wanted to be reasonably fresh for my run tomorrow morning (less than a 12 hour gap). Instead I did an all-out effortv over 1 lap following the 2,4k at 160 HR. The results compared to the other 2 tests went something like this:- (Click on image)








While the results show a marginal improvement over the last 5 weeks (3 to 6 seconds per mile) it is improvement nonetheless. In addition for some of those tests the average heart rate was lower this time round (the 2nd test was less than perfect). The real proof of the pudding is in the overall improvement in the 10 weeks since the first test where I am now "nearly" running the same pace at 10 bpm slower than I was. I am certainly pleased with the overall result.








Overall between warmup and warmdown I completed 9.3 Miles @07:27 pace albeit with some rest periods in between (1:30 between 6 lap sessions)