"Racing" a 5 miler tomorrow in St. Marys. It will serve two purposes. 1.) To see how I handle an aggressive half marathon pace and 2.) to do a threshold test for heart rate training.
After considering my fitness gains this year, I have mentally figured on a 6:20/mi pace for my half marathon coming up next month. That pace equates to a :30 second per mile increase from my PR (and only) half marathon last October and would drop my overall time 6 1/2 minutes. My plan is to run 6:20 pace tomorrow for the first 4 miles (or try to!) and then do what I can in the last mile. This will be a great chance to physically test the pace to see if it's reasonable to sustain over 13.1. I then can adjust the goal pace accordingly if need be.
In order to determine one's threshold, a test of some sort needs to be done. One very popular test is to do a 30 minute hard run and use the average heart rate for the final 20 minutes. Tomorrow's race should take 31-32 minutes so this will be near perfect. Once your threshold HR is determined, the appropriate training zones can then be figured.
Weather will be iffy with a 50% chance of rain. Course is flat. Look for a follow-up next week.
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