Afternoon Run - 15km (an easy start to the week)

5 months ago

dannewton just finished a 15.11km run, that lasted for 99 minutes.
This run helped dannewton burn 1117.0 calories.

Description from Strava:
And as that title says, this a very easy start to the week. I finished the 80/20 Running Book last night. Although it sounds a little boring to repeat the '80% easy runs with just 20% harder efforts' mantra over and over again, it was well written, well explained and the background evidence was very compelling.

So it was that after my first day back at work (I did ease into it by working from home today!), I headed out for a slow and easy run. There are several ways to keep to a slower pace, and the easiest way for me is to stick to an easy pace is to make sure I maintain a low heart rate.

The graphic above illustrates that I averaged 137pbm over the whole 90 odd minutes of running, so I'm very pleased with that

The next chart shows my cadence (i.e amount of strides taken per minute) was at a reasonable 174 strides per minute. The magic number if you believe some books/articles is apparently 180, but I'm not as bothered about that as I am making sure the run felt easy and comfortable.

One of the perks of keeping it easy is that I've noticed my stride pattern (otherwise known as gait) has changed. In the last 3-4 months I feel like my stride has shortened slightly, but my steps have become quicker. I also pick my knees up a little higher now, so I actually feel like my running form has improved, even though I'm still only moving slowly.

And that more efficient running form has resulted in me significantly increasing the distance/time spent running each week. That increased mileage then as the effect of improving my running efficiency (quite literally, the more time spent doing something, the better the results are

The increased mileage has then had a knock on effect on my running distance goal for the year.

I had initially aimed to run 2023km in 2023

I had been doing well up til the injury, and so I sensibly revised my goal
to a more manageable 1500km.

With the increased mileage, I blew past that last week. Which means I now have 6 weeks to run 486km, which averages it out at just over 80km per week.

This is very doable at my current weekly mileage

The only potential spanner in the works is that one of those 6 weeks will be Christmas, and I generally take that week off from running as I'm too busy stuffing my face with mince pies etc etc. Which means that although I will be trying to hit that final goal, I'm not going to force myself to complete it. It would be more important to remain fit and healthy...

Will I make it to 2023km? There's only one way to find out!

So a day off tomorrow (which is usual for a tuesday), and then my next run will be on Wednesday evening, and I might be trying to incorporate some speedwork on that session, but that'll depend on how I feel when wednesday arrives...

If you would like to check out this activity on strava you can see it here:
https://www.strava.com/activities/10252314096

About the Athlete: Living in the UK, I am an intermittent Runner, but always striving for more consistency. When I'm not training I can be found photographing insects or listening to really loud angry music (which is the best type of music obviously!)