Buttsweat Towel© season has begun

36:20 (9:05 pace).  Purposefully slow to test a couple of things.  First, I wanted to see what a 9-minute pace felt like because I think that may be closer to my target pace for weekend long runs when I get there.  Second I wanted to see what my heart rate would be at the end.  It was 152 immediatelay after I stopped.  So I have to guess it was in the 140s most of the time which is low 60s%.  So I'm thinking maybe an 8:45 pace for long runs is more appropriate.  I'll shoot for that on my 8-mile next weekend.

Ran at lunch on base on the 1-mile track.  Felt like going fast so the plan was to run 1 easy, 1 quicker, 1 at max speed and 1 recovery.  I only managed a half-mile at max speed - got a side stich but mostly I was just plain winded.  Good confirmation that I need to be concentrating on endurance at this point.  It played out like this:

8:34 - warm-up

7:41 - felt ok after this one, so let 'er rip

3:33 - half-mile crushed me (7:06 pace)

13:08 - jogged the last 1.5 at an 8:45 pace

Overall 8:14 pace and the realization I'm still not in great shape yet - back to adding mileage!

We'll call it an "moderate aerobic" 6.0 on base on the 1-mile loop.  Wind is worth noting - 20-25 mph steady, gusting to 35.  I wonder what effect that ultimately has if the course is a loop?  I know it hurts overall since the headwind hurts more than the tailwind helps.  Who knows...

Negative split was 25:23, 24:59 for a 50:22 overall (8:24 pace).  Definitely some good effort the last 2 miles.

EZ 4 @ 8:31 pace.

Yet another milestone - my first run of over an hour, though I hit the 1-hour mark before mile 7 this time.  A nice quiet tailwind going out and an irritating, loud headwind coming back was too tough to negative split but the effort was definitely stronger on the way home.  34:10 and 34:55 were the two 4-mile splits (1:09:05 total, 8:38 pace overall).  Final mile was 8:05 into the teeth of the wind.  Pretty happy with it overall.

Weekly mileage: 26.0