I have no scheduled race on the horizon but I'm still working on continuous improvement.  Plus I just love to run.  

Just looking back on last week's highlights:

Total Miles:  106.4 Miles

Low HR Miles:  85% of Total Mileage - (Usually around 130 bpm but had one SUPER low HR run at 121 bpm avg over 14.3 miles / 9:16 pace)

2 "Faster" Days including the Long Run:

Faster Day 1 (Tuesday) - 10.5 total miles.  3 x 1 Miles between 6:05 and 6:10 Pace.  Rest was low HR, EZ pace.

Long Run (Saturday) - Winds were 15 - 20 mph.  15.3 Total Miles.  Average Pace 6:45.  That's the best I've ever felt cutting into headwinds.  Didn't feel like it slowed me up too much.  And for having 102.9 miles in the previous 7 days built up for accumulated fatigue, I felt surprisingly good during and after this run.  I did not run to Pace or HR.  This was all by Feel running to perceived "Moderately fast but not hard" intensity.  In other words, no heavy legs or feeling of lactate buildup.  Here are the splits from the long run:

Nice miles.

 

I am in LA until today for a race in Monterey that was canceled due to the fires. The bad air quality cane in the night before the race. Bummer but it’s sad for all those that have lose everything here.

That's not good.  You've got to feel for people losing everything they own.  I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.  I can understand canceling a race.  No one should even be out jogging in air quality that poor.

Sorry I've been MIA for a while - my HR training has been a bit wacko as of late.  Not sure what's going on but I'm still running.  Finished a 50 mile trail race over the weekend in 12 hours and change.  The saturated ground with a recent storm made the trail muddy and slick.  Still finished 137 of 244, so not too bad, especially running in mud with road shoes, haha!

 

SD - Excellent miles!  You've gotta have a race coming up, right?

 

Docket - Sorry about Monterey, but as SD said, it's all in perspective.  How about joining me at Big Sur in April? 

Actually, no I have no race coming up.  I'll probably jog the Turkey Trot 5K with some friends but I won't be racing it.  I'll probably pick something up if a friend of mine suggests it and it isn't too expensive to travel to.

Great job on the 50 miler!

Is this how normal people feel?  I've been struggling with running outside because, although not hot AF anymore (90F as the highest during the day and normally low 80s and 70 dewpoint when I run at night), my HR keeps going up enough to make my run slower than the TM by a lot to keep the MAF down.  Here is one example of a run earlier in the week in 78F/68 dewpoint:

 

Run 1

 

Then one in 65F and 64 dewpoint, which used to make me fly but the high mileage I've been doing prevents that, lol.  But the HR looks better and a bit faster:

 

Run 2

 

Today, it was 45F and 32 dewpoint.  I used to think the TM was more similar to 60F, but I think the TM paces and HRs will be similar to 45-50F outside on my TM.  I ran a super tough 11 miler with 44 minutes @ tempo last night (10K pace) last night (TM) so I was expecting my pace to remain similar to the prior slow runs, but didn't.  But look at that HR.  I couldn't have gotten to MAF even if I had tried:

 

 

Run 3

 

Is this how normal people run?  LOL.  We hardly ever have the opportunity to run in something close to normal weather for others, it's hard to see the HR this low unless I'm walking around the house.

The short answer is yes, this is how normal people run.  My normal runs look very similar to yours.  Usually after a speedy day, I'll be in the 120's for avg bpm.  Normal days are in the 130's.  I would call MAF intensity as "moderate effort - fast" that I only hit occasionally when I'm feeling particularly peppy and an awesome song comes on.  There is one thing that really jumps out at me that is very different in your runs though.  The maximum HR reading at each interval is significantly higher than your average.  What the hell is causing that?  It seems to be on almost every split.  The difference between average and max on my splits are typically about 5-10 bpm and the high end is usually cuz I'm going up a hill at some point in that mile (or an awesome song comes on, or I see a hot girl ).

Mostly, asthma and the humidity is what cause mine to be higher than that.  Especially during the first mile or two, my HR is normally super high as even at slow AF pace I'm struggling and cannot breathe.  I start breathing easier after Mile 4 no matter which pace or distance.

 

I don't think happens on the TM runs, though.  Just outside.

Oh Christ, I bet that asthma and humidity make things super hard.  It's interesting that things get easier at Mile 4-ish.  I don't have either of those issues to deal with and the first few miles are always a bitch for me unless I do them at a very low effort which I think you do anyway.  A few weeks ago I joined a group run where we did 8 miles where the first 4 miles were slightly uphill and the group did the first two miles at 7:15 pace.  Nobody in that group except for one other guy could even pray to run a marathon at the pace on a flat.  It just amazes me that how many people do literally every run faster than their MP.  Regardless, I felt like I was fricken dying.  Yet, after mile 2 I was absolutely fine (just like you!).  We averaged exactly 7:10 pace for the 8 miles and I chalked it up as a light tempo run.

haha, I don't even think I could run 7:15mm for 1/2 mile on the TM or on flat terrain.

 

But yeah, lots of people run their easy runs too fast, IMO.  Long runs as well.  I do that often, then get back with the program, then fall off the wagon, etc.  There is a reason why my fast marathon of 4:34 had easy and LRs in the 12mm range.  Running slow does pay off in endurance.  I just need to remember that now, ha.

 

MY TM BROKE!  Last night, halfway through my run.  Same part that breaks and I think it relates to my old house, Miami and power surges.  Anyway, mother board still under warranty and on the way back to me. In the meantime, I'll slog in 84F tonight and tomorrow.  Sigh.

Oh no!!!  That SUCKS!!!  Glad to hear it's under warranty.  Can you get out before sunrise or is not conducive to your schedule?

Yes, the EZ pace is super important and is often forgotten.  I will share my personal experience with this to highlight just how HUGE of an impact that going really EZ can be...  The first time I broke 3 hours in the marathon, I was running my EZ pace over 9:00 pace.  Prior to that I was running about 7:30 - 7:45 pretty much every single mile and ended up with a marathon time of 3:45.  It was pretty shocking to me just how much I was able to improve by slowing down my EZ runs.  Not only did my marathon time improve by tremendous amounts but my tempo pace improved dramatically as well.  Tempo pace when I was running my EZ days in that 7:30 - 7:45 range was about 7:00 which was even probably too fast for me at Tempo effort as I was breathing pretty heavy.  After slowing down EZ pace to 9:00+ my Tempo pace dropped to the 6:30's after a few months and it's been slowly improving ever since.  So the moral of the story is:   SLOW DOWN EVERYONE!!!  

I do not apply EZ pace to my Long Run though past the first mile.  I want my Long Runs to all be a workout.  I pick one of 3 general flavors.  For each flavor, I display only Distance and Time on my watch.  I do not display HR or Pace during the Long Run because I want it to be fully effort based and the workout is not intended to be easy OR hard and I don't want to accidentally start chasing numbers:

1. Steady moderate effort all by feel for about 2 hours. Nothing hard. 
2. Light moderate effort for about an hour followed by steady comfortably fast Tempo Pace for about an hour.  Again, nothing hard.  This ends up being pretty damn close to current Marathon Pace ability for one hour despite never checking HR or Pace.  
3. Light moderate effort with 2 x 2 miles at perceived Threshold with several miles at light moderate effort in between.  Again, all by Feel and never hard.  Usually ends up being a little faster than Half Marathon Pace on the fast parts and almost always right around 90% MaxHR for the faster sections.  

 

Oh no!!!  That SUCKS!!!  Glad to hear it's under warranty.  Can you get out before sunrise or is not conducive to your schedule?

 

Yes, the EZ pace is super important and is often forgotten.  I will share my personal experience with this to highlight just how HUGE of an impact that going really EZ can be...  The first time I broke 3 hours in the marathon, I was running my EZ pace over 9:00 pace.  Prior to that I was running about 7:30 - 7:45 pretty much every single mile and ended up with a marathon time of 3:45.  It was pretty shocking to me just how much I was able to improve by slowing down my EZ runs.  Not only did my marathon time improve by tremendous amounts but my tempo pace improved dramatically as well.  Tempo pace when I was running my EZ days in that 7:30 - 7:45 range was about 7:00 which was even probably too fast for me at Tempo effort as I was breathing pretty heavy.  After slowing down EZ pace to 9:00+ my Tempo pace dropped to the 6:30's after a few months and it's been slowly improving ever since.  So the moral of the story is:   SLOW DOWN EVERYONE!!!  

 

I do not apply EZ pace to my Long Run though past the first mile.  I want my Long Runs to all be a workout.  I pick one of 3 general flavors.  For each flavor, I display only Distance and Time on my watch.  I do not display HR or Pace during the Long Run because I want it to be fully effort based and the workout is not intended to be easy OR hard and I don't want to accidentally start chasing numbers:

1. Steady moderate effort all by feel for about 2 hours. Nothing hard. 
2. Light moderate effort for about an hour followed by steady comfortably fast Tempo Pace for about an hour.  Again, nothing hard.  This ends up being pretty damn close to current Marathon Pace ability for one hour despite never checking HR or Pace.  
3. Light moderate effort with 2 x 2 miles at perceived Threshold with several miles at light moderate effort in between.  Again, all by Feel and never hard.  Usually ends up being a little faster than Half Marathon Pace on the fast parts and almost always right around 90% MaxHR for the faster sections.  

I know all that but I FORGET.  Especially when the TM does feel nice and my HR is super low.  I just don't know if slowing down more on the TM will help at all, but when I head outside after months on the TM, I tend to forget what I already knew for a decade. Plus slowing down is the ONLY way, IMO, you can put more miles.  I'm back to the 60mpw and only way I could do it was to slow down my easy runs and then hit the workout days fast.

My LRs vary between fast LRs and endurance (slow) runs.  Now that I'm back in the 60mpw range, I sort of prefer the slower ones and the mid-week 10-15milers as the speed workouts.