keeping going

Friday
Woke up to torrential rain, which was washing away the snow nicely.

Had arranged to plod with TP - her return to running after weeks of virus and rotten chest (seems to be a lot of it around). Decided as she had not plodded for ages a tready session would be better than her not completing the route.

So tready it was, now this shoud have been an 'easy' session for me as I have my long run tomorrow. But I find it difficult to do easy on the tready.

However 4 miles done - some pyramids, some hill walking and some at around 145-150 HR.

Saturday
Its long run day, but did not wake until 8.00 so up then for some porage and then back to bed for an hour to finish reading Going Postal the latest Pratchett in paperback, that I had for Christmas.

Then up and out - a new route, suggested by mrbeanz, which takes quieter roads out and then my usual main road back.

I have realised that all my runs are hard work - have been running at 145 HR, which is too hard to maintain, so I have dropped the max down to 140 on my Garmin.

This is the first outside run at this new rate. The consequence of this is I am having to learn to plod more slowly without dropping into a walk :>)

First mile is basically downhill to the river, so fairly easy. Then the route begins its undulating climb to a much higher point than my other out and back route.
Once past the toxic 15, I began to enjoy myself, especially as this part was on a road I rarely drive along, and part of it I have never even driven, so all new and different. As the Sun broke through I had fantastic views across the Derwent valley.

My HRM lost signal from time to time and occasionally registered signals of 230 bpm!!! but I am still here to to tell the tale and just kept plodding comfortably.

Reached the turn and found I had done about 5 miles - so it was going to be 9 miles not the planned 8. Keeping to HR140 seems to have been a good idea - the return plod was much more comfortable than the same 4 miles 10 days ago.

Phoned teenbeanz when I was 1.5 miles out and he came out to meet me and did some fartlek stuff looping round me for the last mile home.

Arrived home not feeling too knackered and like I could have gone further if necessary. :>))

So the numbers:

Mile	Pace	AHR
1	12:59	139	downhill
2	13:43	139
3	14:03	143	rising
4	13:44	151	climbing
5	13:24	149	still undulating
6	13:31	140	coming home
7	13:32	139	nice and steady
8	13:54	138	this is uphill
0.98	15:02	137	killer hill warm down
9.98	13:48	142	2:03:55

Conclusions?
Running on the flat I reckon I can plod along comfortably at 13:30 pace or even a bit quicker - which gives a half marathon time of 2:58 for Brass Monkey. Given my last two were over 3 hours, I would be pleased with that - although I did 2:43:27 last time, which is about 12:30 pace! No chance of that I suspect.

So that's 2005 running done - though there is a local 5km at midnight mmm?

Perhaps not, it is even more vertically 'undulating' than today's route I believe.

Anyway a happy beanz today.