April 15th, 2009 – Threshold 3

So, despite doing some sort of really painful damage to my foot yesterday, I sucked it up and got back to the gym today for my next run.  I noticed the pain from my over taping hadn’t gone completely away.  I had no idea how that would impact this run.  Threshold 3 was the last of the new workouts and I hadn’t run it so far.  This one is 2 minutes in zone 2, 1 in zone 3, and then 30 seconds in zone 4.  That seemed much easier than threshold 2, since it was the gradual jump I find easier to manage.

I taped my foot again for this run, but I took the extra care to make sure when I put my foot down it didn’t feel as tight as it did the last time.  That meant I had to tape it a second time, but I got what I thought was a manageable tape job applied and it didn’t feel bad even with the injury to my foot.

I cannot believe I’m running this fast.  Even for short intervals.  To get my heart rate into the right zone for each interval, I had to pull off some amazing speeds.  For the zone 3 minute interval, it meant I was running as fast as 6:15 mile pace, and for zone 4 inside the 30 second interval required 5:39 mile pace.  These are incredible speeds in my mind, especially given that 10 months ago, paces faster than 8 minute miles were causing me these same challenges.  It’s all relative I guess.

The heart monitor strap is causing me consternation of late.  ARGH!  It’s always equipment issues.  Now, it appears I’m too thin around the chest, or something.  As I get soaked (I’m a serious sweat machine in these runs) the strap slips and my heart rate will be read as zero (I’m dead) or 220 (my heart exploded and I’m not sure I’m dead) neither of which is true.  To fix it, I have to stop and adjust the strap, mostly just to get it tight against my chest again and I’m slippery. LOL  Anyway, twice during the run I had to stop.  That isn’t necessarily a bad thing other than my recovery is stunning and I can drop 55 or more beats in a minute of pause and that will drop me out of zone 4 into zone 1.  That means that I need to speed up to get it back into the right zone.

Housekeeping information:  8.4 miles in 70 minutes; 8:20 per mile average pace; 855 calories burned.  That was amazing to me, because at one point my legs were so tired I literally took part of the 2 minutes in zone 2 to walk at 4 miles per hour or 15:00 miles.  I was pleased though that until almost the very end, the 30 second zone 4 interval stayed in the 6 minute and below pace.  That means I ran more than a mile at below 6 minute pace.

The taping worked this time the way I’d hoped.  I had no foot issues on my left foot.  However, my right foot where there is a callus there is a small blister that raised up on top of the callus.  Guess that means I’ll have to tape both feet for the next run.

I’m finding that I cross some threshold each run right at about 50 minutes.  My heart rate drops 4 or 5 beats per minute on average and if that’s the zone or the endorphins, or just body exhaustion all I know is that it becomes harder to push my body because a calm sort of washes over it.  Very interesting and challenging in this threshold training.  We’ll see how it goes moving forward.

Cheers!