Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Washington D.C. - Tour de Tourist

Time: 1:30
Distance: 12.02 miles
Effort: Moderate
Body: Good



Great run this evening.  After a long day at the work HQ, I bagged a group dinner in favor of a little mileage.  Ran at an easy, warm-up pace from hotel, located in the Foggy Bottom 'hood, down to the Lincoln Memorial. My plan today was to do a long tempo-pace run with a few hill repeats.


Picked up the pace on the east side of Abe and ran across Memorial Bridge to the entrance to Arlington National Cemetery (I still get a kick out of the notion that the cemetery was placed on Robert E. Lee's front lawn).  I turned around here and ran back across the bridge, past Abe, over to the Jefferson Memorial (paused long enough to visit Tom and read his words on the memorial's walls), then by the Washington Monument and down the National Mall to the Capitol.  


Spent a little time on the Hill doing hill repeats.  Did five of 'em on the 2/10 mile hill at about a 6:20 pace with easy jogs in between.  A couple of the security guards appeared to think I was nuts. I then ran back down the Mall and over to the Treasury Building and past the White House.  Cooled down for about a mile as I ran through the Farragut and Dupont Circle 'hoods.


I wore the heart rate monitor and averaged 146 over the whole run.  Pretty happy with that...at least I think I am. Average pace, including the warm-up, cool down and hill repeats, was 7:32. The tempo parts appear to have been averaging around 6:50. Garmin says 2,827 feet of elevation gain. Not possible. It also says I started at -741 feet. Weird.


Great run at sea level.



5 comments:

  1. Saw your name on the San Juan 50 list....congrats on getting in. Looks like a pretty deep field too.

    I don't see how guys are able to run with that low an HR. I practically hit 140 just walking out to the mailbox....lol

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  2. Yeah, SJ50 should be interesting. I'm a little anxious (and way excited) about it. When I look at your HR reports, I'm amazed at how high yours gets. Check GZ's blog and read the "Lucho Chronicles" bit - Here: http://georgezack.blogspot.com/2009/06/lucho-chronicles.html Good stuff on MAF training.

    JRP

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  3. Yeah, I had actually skimmed over that MAF training stuff on his site a while back, but for whatever reason didn't really think about incorporating it into my own training. Think it's time I go back and revisit this...

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  4. Cross posting ...

    So my latest nickel on this ...

    ... first you have to do training you believe in and enjoy. Otherwise it will not work, because you won't do it.

    ... regardless of what training you are doing, it should be to some end, and that end ought to be measurable. MAF is one way of doing that - where the measure is setting a HR and seeing if paces improve at that HR over the course of training.

    ... I have come to think of it more as Fixed HR training (versus maximum aerobic function).

    ... inclines, heat ... these things jack fixed hr training significantly.

    ... done worry about the first mile or so. You are warming up.

    ... I'd also say this ... run easy alot. I personally have questioned the exclusivity of some of the principles of MAF (like no fast running, never exceeding the cap, and how the cap is calculated). That, in the eyes of some, has positioned me against it. But that said, I do agree that most running needs to be done easily.

    ... and so to that end, it might be good to wear a HR monitor and run easy without looking at the monitor during the run. See what the HR was after run. I think this could give you some insight as to what your easy paces ought to be and at what HRs (realize that a single run may not effectively capture this).

    ... MAF runs are GREAT for true recovery.

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  5. GZ - thanks for the cross-post. Great to have your thinking on this. I've been doing a lot of easy running this winter. Thinking about it as much as base-building (50K and 50-miler on the race horizon) for the spring/summer as MAF training. It seems like I have been able do harder runs at a lower HR, but haven't yet been organized enough verify that feeling.

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