Hot and Steady

It was already +25C without the humidity when I left this morning at a little past 5:30am for my run, and so I decided to keep an eye on my heart rate and run easy enough to try and keep it under 140bpm. This was going to be tough in the heat, but I figured it was worth a try. My morning routine is much faster than I thought it ever could be and it only takes me about 15 minutes from wake up to out the door. On top of that I don't feel as stiff and creaky at the beginning of my morning runs as I used to, although I certainly don't feel springy either. With that in mind the run started off nice and easy and my pace quickly got under 6:00/km, which is where is remained for the entire run. My heart rate was right where I wanted it to be up until I had to get back up the hill that is Jones Avenue on my way home. A little hill training never hurt anyone and I didn't mind getting a little gassed on that one. It was beautiful running into the Sunrise along the boardwalk down in the Beaches, and it just happened that the end of the beach marked the halfway point for my run! In the end I managed a fairly easy 15km and my heart rate averaged out to 137bpm.

In other news I stumbled upon a really interesting (for runners anyway) blog of ultrarunner extraordinaire Anton Krupicka by way of an ultrarunner in the making that I've been following for a while. Reading through his training and his recent Western States 100 podium finish sure put my pathetic marathon training in perspective and helped me to stay really easy on my morning run. I hope that the amazing feats that I read about by these ultrapeeps help me get through those Sunday long runs, which for them would likely be mid week recovery jogs. Anyway, go check out their blogs, and in particular the recent posts from Anton Krupicka as it has some great pictures from the Western States 100 that was run just a week or so ago.