3.33 Plank Hold

I was going to run intervals today, I like running intervals at the beginning of the week but my legs just didn't feel powerful enough so I decided to swap them with my 'long' run. My prescribed pace for the 6 miles was 8.58, I was ok for 5 miles but I dropped right off in the last mile.. I really need to better my aerobic endurance. I've decided I'm going to switch up the long runs and try and run a bit longer but slower and try and be a bit more consistent with my pacing over them. I'm intending on trying to start slow finish strong in my next one. I'm starting to get really worried about my pacing for the half and also about reaching my time goals. The more I run the more ridiculous the goal I set myself seems..

Today I ran 6 miles in 53.57. I beat my old 4 mile and 5 mile records along the way and ran 2 seconds faster than my 6 mile time.. this is one good thing about being a new runner, I'm still improving my times a lot! My average heartrate was 181 though, I really wish I could get that down, my legs still feel strong when my lungs and heart let me down. Anyway here are the splits.

Mile 1 - 8.58 HR 168
Mile 2 - 8.51 HR 181
Mile 3 - 8.52 HR 182
Mile 4 - 8.51 HR 184
Mile 5 - 9.00 HR 186
Mile 6 - 9.28 HR 185

Gahhh that last mile was so frustrating. I really wanted to quit, my finger was poised above the pause button more than once. But finishing slow is better than quitting so I'll take it! My new 5 and 4 mile times save this run a little bit!

5 miles in 44.32
4 miles in 35.32

I just hope I can sort my endurance and pacing problems out. I'll be so upset if I mess up my pace and burn out early on in the half marathon.

Before tea Mike and I decided to test our max push-ups, pull-ups and plank. My push-ups were 27, 3 less than my max of 30 which is suggesting I ought to be doing them more often, and I think my weekly totals would agree with that statement. I still can't do a full pull-up from dead hang so they were a bit of a non-starter too, but from dead hang I can get higher up, I was close but just didn't quite have the strength needed. My plank, however, as you might have guessed from the title was pretty damn good! I lasted 3.33 what a fun number haha. I don't know how I stayed up so long, I remember looking at the timer at 1.44 thinking I can never hold this another minute but I put it out of the way and tried not to think about it. I was thinking about Mike doing a 5+ minute plank (he is strong!!) and I thought if he can do more than 5 minutes I can do 3! I was shaking so much when I dropped.

Oh yeah.. and then like a complete crazy lady I did a core workout with Mike, straight after the mega plank... I'm gonna be sore tomorrow!! We did 20 minutes of core and called it a night. I'd meant to do all these tests before the end of March so I could put them on my monthly recap.. which is still to come, but they'll start April off nicely at least!