Saturday 19 September 2015

Saturday session - 8km hard at Moore Park (am) + 8km recovery (pm)

Tough conditions out there this morning on a very damp (arguably longer than) 1km loop around Moore Park. I have run the same loop three times since the council started construction, which has altered the traditional 1km course. Since then, I have made two consistently weird observations. Firstly, my lap times have consistently been much slower than previously (and I have run this loop millions of times). And secondly, despite running essentially the same loop the last three times, I have had completely different lengths on my Garmin. Today was actually short of 1km, despite everyone else's being on the money or over??? Oh well. Nevertheless, the session was simple - 8km 'hard.' After the first two laps, I realised that the lap times were all over the shop, so switched to watching my heart rate. Tried to keep it around 170 beats per minute, which saw me backing off slightly around the 5-6km mark. This was actually great feedback, as I didn't 'blow-up' like I traditionally would have if I had been simply focusing on pace. Came home in 26:40. By no means anything amazing, but considering the muddy conditions and rain, along with a questionable '1km loop,' quite satisfied as effort wise and form wise I felt great. Only a small turn-out today with the Sydney Running Festival tomorrow saw myself out the front running solo. Brad had a solid run, coming home about one minute behind. It's always good to see that everyone else ran slower times than normal, reiterating the course issues and the conditions. A white fence warm-up and cool-down bringing the session up to 16km. Will get out later on for an easy 8km after discussing dinner plans tonight with (hopefully) Michael and Lorie. Afghan cuisine might be on the cards?

Ethiopian it is! Can't complain, I'm essentially living there at the moment. Hopefully I start running like one! 8km recovery this afternoon into a strong south-easterly. Horrible weather today, not in terms of rain, but just cold, windy, rubbish-surf, etc. Held 4:31 min/km pace averaging a heart rate of 121 beats per minute. Best of luck to everyone competing in the Sydney Running Festival. I would have been tempted to compete in the Bridge Run had the organisers thought to make the course 700m longer!

No comments:

Post a Comment