Sunday, October 28, 2007

How to spoil a long run

I was very determined to make a good long run Sunday, with 5x4k at MP in order to see how easily I could handle the 3'45" pace targeted for the Marathon.

that was the intention ....

the reality is that I started to run and after 15/20 minutes at warm-up pace I was already sweating like it was not supposed to be ....
I pushed through the 1st fast section, but the HR was already into the 170s territory, while it was supposed to be at a more comfortable 165bpm. The second fast slot was even worse as I was always off pace and feeling already deadly tired...

I called a quit and simply went on at a steady pace to close with 33km(21Miles) , including other fast stretches here and there....

I was pretty depressed to have performed so badly until I gave a look at the website of the HK Meteo Service. they have a real time tracking of Humidity and temperature for each district, so you can have exact data : the conditions were 24C(75F) , 85% Humidity, 60 Air Pollution Index (High to very High) ...
so in these conditions, you can probably lose at least 10sec/km or more at the same effort. It is a reality difficult to accept, but when temperature rise over 20C, performance is impaired significantly, especially with high humidity and lack of breeze

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