The Puggle Shuffle: HR Training - Day 26

I don't know why, but I had it in my head to take the Daisy out with me for my run.

I should have just played in traffic.

See those spikes? Every time she would pull on the leash and I would have to fight to keep her in control...BAM! It was a tug-o-war the entire time. I covered close to 5 miles. Her back and forth efforts made her cover 10.

But, for the chaos I brought onto myself, the run was okay. Seems my groundspeed on flat land has been staying more within the 12-13 minute/mile range, going no slower than 15 minutes per mile if I have to really back off. So, with just a month, I've gone from 17 minutes per mile to almost 12. So does this HR training actually work? I think the data speaks for itself. :-)

Thinking to the future, I have to figure out what happens after day 42 in the training plan. Do I get some structured advice to build my own plan? Do I get another set of days that are outlined like what I got after my Metabolic/VO2Max Testing? One thing that I'm definately going to do is to re-incorporate my cross-training again. As I said before, I'm looking to do CrossFit, but following the Gym Jones idea of "Crosstrain for overall fitness, but you need to go long if that's your sport." If I didn't believe that you had to run long for ultramarathon conditioning, I would do the CrossFit Endurance workouts instead. But the idea of just hammering yourself into the ground with intervals, tempo runs, and time trial runs that are no longer than 13.1 miles just doesn't sound right - especially if you mix that in with the standard CrossFit 3/1 workout routine (and those WODs are already tough as hell if you do them Rx'ed.

Thankfully, I found some info on a hybrid system that uses some CrossFit, but focuses on gymnastics, Olympic lifting, and slow lifting with limited metabolic conditioning...aka Gant's Hybrid Program. I can do Gant's program at work during my lunches and do my shorter runs in the morning or at night during the work week and a long run (or two) on the weekend. Gant's Hybrid would help condition me without overtaxing me and I'll have enough energy to run. Plus, it's structured on a weekly 7 day schedule - which is a bonus. I'm really looking forward to it.

Tomorrow: A nice rest day. Sunday: My first ever LSD Base run! It's two hour long and a mix of everything, including zone 3 - ZONE 3!!! But, I'm going to give this a whack at the Lake Youngs Trail. I figured what better place to test this out and get some experience with hills than to go there since the hills aren't killer, but there is enough variety to test my HR and see how my exertion perception is when going up and down (not to mention trying to have a low HR when going downhill.)