Notes
7 miles with 10xhill blasts
So. Hot. Also, I want to throw my HR monitor out a window lately. It's just started spiking lately and I'm not sure why. Although I finally inspected it today and it has some rust. Not sure if I can just clean it off or if I'll need to get a new one. Anyway, I feel fairly confident my HR never hit 191 on this nor did it stay in the 180s (that's like the end of a 5k effort).
I struggled with the heat today. Honestly, I struggled the most with knowing I was going to go run in the heat. I had the running program before this and stood around in the heat for an hour, knowing what I was about to have to do. Mentally, it was tough. I felt okay for the warm up and actually the strides felt pretty decent. I started my hill blasts and as normal on the first one I had to shake off the rust but they got better. I kept running by the same family unpacking their car and the little girl shouted at one point, "That's the same girl!" That family is always in their yard whenever I do these.
Anyway, I could have cut the hill blasts short but I didn't feel there was a reason to. I gave myself a benchmark of at least 6. If 6 felt okay, then at least 8, and if 8 were okay, then 10. Of course if I'd felt really horrible I could've cut them shorter than 6 but it felt like 6 was the minimum for getting something out of them.
They didn't feel awesome but they almost never feel awesome and they didn't feel any worse than usual so I stuck it out and did 10. Interestingly, despite me saying they never get faster, Garmin Connect had some of them in the low 5s pace wise which is a little faster-but who knows. Either way, just glad to get this out of the way. Hill blasts in the afternoon heat are not my favorite.