It was hot and humid in Central Park this morning for the WABC Father's Day Race Against Prostate Cancer. Although the temperatures were 23 or 24, the humidity was a hothouse 95% and most of the seven thousand runners were sweating even before the start. Overheating was a real issue, particularly for a sprint distance like five miles, where there isn't time to settle into a comfortable, "grind out the miles" pace and set the rpm at a sustainable level. Today was "redline" from about ten minutes into the race all the way to the finish near Tavern on the Green.
Given the day, I was quite happy with the following stats:
Mile 1: 8:25 Average Heart Rate (AHR): 147
Mile 2: 8:09 AHR 158
Mile 3: 8:33 AHR 165
Mile 4: 8:19 AHR 168
Mile 5: 8:01 AHR 174
My finish time of 41:29 was much faster than last weeks five miler at 43:23, so the base training and limited speed work is paying off. My strategy is still to keep up the cycling, increase my base mileage, drop about ten kilos over the summer and wait until twelve weeks before the New York Marathon (mid-August) to start doing the fast kilometer repeats and sprint work to build up leg speed for November 2 2008!
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