Recap: 6k / 6 Hills

Part 1: 6k

Slowly recovering from my half marathon!

On Tuesday we did a 6k, and I was curious to see how I’d do considering my muscles were still stiff and sore.

Distance: 6.0k

Time: 35.12 min

Pace: 5.52min/km

Heart rate: 169bpm (87%)

Happy to see that I am at the same pace as last week’s run, even with my sore muscles.

A few people have asked me when I would consider that my heart rate training was “working”. It was a good question, so I took some time to think about the answer. Here’s what I’ve decided:

When I can run 6k at a 5.20 pace or better in an 80-90% heart rate zone, I will say it has “worked”.

Part 2: 6 Hills

Due to unexpected overtime at work, I didn’t make it out to hills with the group. Instead, I ran hills locally. In the end, I was grateful for this as my knee felt a bit sore. And interestingly, now that I’m tracking my heart rate I could see I hadn’t fully recovered from the day before!

On Tuesday I kept a “Zone 4” (80-90% max HR) with a 5.52 pace. But Wednesday night when I was doing my warm-up run (to get to the hill), anything faster than a 7.10 pace set my heart rate into Zone 5 (90%+)!**

A mixed blessing: my local hill is very small. While the distance was appropriate, it was much less of a grade and elevation change than it should have been. Still, I cranked out my 6 repeats even though I was very unmotivated to do so.

Motivation has been a strong struggle for me this week. Hopefully I get a motivation boost in time for Sunday’s run!

**I was questioning the accuracy of my heart rate monitor that night, as when I was sprinting uphill and gasping for breath, my heart rate read as being only 83%...