A little heat and hill training

I have to prepare for Afton and had some time yesterday afternoon to go for a run from home. My goals were to keep my heart rate in the range of 150 to 160. There are several long hills on my planned route and I was going to walk up them if my HR got to 160.

It was 80 degrees and humid so the weather was perfect for my training. I mixed up a hand-held with HEED and took off. My first couple miles were under 7:00's and my HR did get up to 165 but there were a few runners on the path for me to pass. :-) After that I settled into a nice pace, keeping my HR under 160.

Why 160? I was reading that for a marathon your HR should average 5 beats under your half marathon average. I blew it in Fargo by having my HR in the low 170's for several miles. The only half marathon that I have ever 'raced' was one year ago. My average HR there was 163 and I know I'm in better shape now so I picked 160 as something I can average for hours. That's what I'll do in Afton in three weeks and that also my average HR from Afton last year (160).

So what happened is that if my HR reached 160 up a hill, I'd walk until it was back down to 152 and then I'd take off again. I ended up walking about 10 times. My average HR was 157 and my average pace was 8:17 for 7.7 miles in the heat.

I hope to finish the Afton 50K. If I do finish, I will be happy with anything under 6 hours.

--Mark