Run 5km March 7 2011

My current running form (March 2011) I didn't run a lot last week so I was really looking forward to today's run. Ever since the results of my medical and fitness test I've been excited at the prospect of pushing myself a bit harder than normal. Today was a combination of intervals and a tempo run over 5km. I still run at the park near where I live so that I can keep an eye on pace that I am running at. For some reason each lap is just about 360m. Don't ask me why. Life will be so much easier if it was a full 400m. I have to run 14 laps of that park to cover 5km. These are the lap times: Lap 1 3:18 Easy Lap 2 2:55 half sprint/half easy Lap 3 3:04 half sprint/half easy Lap 4 3:00 half sprint/half easy Lap 5 3:51 Easy Lap 6 3:58 Easy Lap 7 3:40 Easy Lap 8 3:16 Hard Lap 9 2:58 Hard Lap 10 2:44 Hard Lap 11 4:05 Easy Lap 12 3:49 Easy Lap 13 2:55 Hard Lap 14 4:44 Easy Total 47:27 The timing is a bit erratic but the half sprint/half easy was really really hard. I ran out of steam by the time I did the 3rd intervals and no matter how slow I ran, my heart rate was still about 80% MHR so I had to walk for some of the easy run until I get it down to a reasonable rate. My average heart rate for today's run was 81% MHR which is higher than usual for me. I usually run at about an average of 77% MHR. The odd thing is that on my hard runs for laps 8 to 10, I was running at about 88% MHR which I'm not supposed to. I suspect that my 180 beats per minute maximum heart rate may still not be accurate. I must test my maximum heart beat to make sure. Anyway, even the run was tough and hard, this was an enjoyable one for me.

I think if I can maintain a 2 min 30 pace per lap I'll be running the 5km in 28 mins which suits me just fine. Let's see what happens in a few weeks time.