An early start this morning to be in York for 9am to run the Brass Monkey half marathon. Given that I'm still in the 'endurance phase' of my marathon training plan, I'd been told not to race as building mileage is more important and racing at this stage could result in injury - or more likely for me, being so tired that I can't train for the rest of the week!
I decided I was going to try to work out heart rate training so strapped on my monitor and, er, watched it. I don't really understand what my heart rate should be when I'm running to ensure I'm running at the optimum level. I ran the first seven miles at 160 bpm (thanks for keeping me steady, Gill) but then increased to 170 bpm for the next five miles and upped it a bit more to 175 bpm for the last mile. But what does all this mean?? I'll have to check it out with Mick, the marathon school coach who reckons training by heart rate is the best way.
Anyway, I managed 2 hours 16 minutes, which is my slowest half marathon yet but I guess I need to bear in mind it's getting the mileage in that counts most at this stage. I think that's the case anyway - the problem with marathon training is that there's so much conflicting advice it's hard to know what the best thing to do is.
Despite being tired and having feet covered in blisters, I think I'm doing okay mileage wise. In the last week, I've done about 30 miles plus boot camp - I just hope I can keep it up!
Eleven weeks and 13 more miles than today to go...arrgghh
Stay positive Soph, you're doing great!
ReplyDelete