A.M. Ran with Jeff, Daniel, and Vern. Did a 4.7 warmup with everybody, then Jeff and I ran the 5 mile tempo. The plan was to run about 5:40-5:45 pace focusing on good form and good rhythm, and practice improving stability on the right foot. We ran the course in the normal direction starting from Geneva. Total time: 28:13.5 (5:38.7 average)
Splits by mile: 5:46, 5:43, 5:41, 5:37, 5:26. Splits by half: 14:22, 13:51. HR: Around 150 in the first mile, around 154-155 in the second and third. 162 in the fourth. The last mile had the quarters of 83, 81, 81, and 81. HR made its way to 164 in the first half, and then all the way up to 170, and back down to 167 once I ran out of juice. Jeff dropped me with about 500 to go, and gapped me by 11(!) seconds while I was still running 5:24 pace. His last quarter was 71. Jeff's HR stayed around 8 bpm above mine most of the time. Yes, the pace was easy enough for him to be able to report it frequently. Interesting observation - right after the 180 turn we surged to get back up to pace. My HR stayed steady, while Jeff's spiked then dropped back down once the effort was back to normal. And it goes without saying that in comparison to me he felt a lot more comfortable. That sheds some light on a few things, assuming this is a pattern and not just one occurrence. If you push and HR does not respond, you will have oxygen debt, so you can only push that far. That would explain why I really really do not like mid-race surges, get knocked out by hills, sharp turns, etc.
Total mileage for the run was 11. P.M. 2 with Benjamin in 18:03, 2 with Jenny in 18:44, Julia ran the first 1.5 with us in 13:51.
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