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6.27 miles in 1:19:56 (12:45/mile and 127bpm).  Spring has sprung!  It was a beautiful 55 degrees early this morning.

My mother turned 82 today.  I gave her breakfast in bed (apples and yogurt with a candle).  It beats my customary email for her birthday.

5.48 miles in 1:12:31, or 13:14 per mile at average heart rate of 127bpm.  It was a bit cooler at 41 degrees this morning.  But, I'll blame the sluggish time on over-indulging last night at an all-you-can-eat buffet following Elisa's graduation ceremony.  She sang the national anthem and had all 4 grandparents there!

10.12 miles in 2:10:09 or 12:52/mile at 129bpm.  I wanted to go faster, but my heart rate kept creeping up.  It was 59 degrees and beautiful today.  The whole run was in the daylight.

3.76 miles in 47:03 or 12:32/mile at 126bpm.  I think this is the first time all my miles have been under 13 minutes at that heart rate.  It was short sleeve, 61 degree weather this morning and I even started to sweat a little bit, but nothing like indoor treadmill work.

4.62 miles in 57:54 at 12:32/mile and 126bpm.  Same pace and heart rate as yesterday, but different distance.  Talked with another runner along the way about the beautiful 59 degree weather.  After he moved on, I noticed that my heart rate was in the high 130's and my max heart rate turned out to be 145bpm, but most of the rest of the time, I kept it real low to get the 126bpm average.

I'm thinking I need to do some fast running soon.  All this slow stuff feels really good, but I think I need to start developing speed too.

7.31 miles in 1:12:39 or 9:56/mile and 149bpm.  Actually, I hardly ever went at that pace with that heart rate.  Sometimes, I ran at a 14 minute pace with under 130bpm.  Other times, I ran closer to an 8 minute pace with a heart rate around 160bpm.  More or less, I ran as fast as I could to the end of each mile and then got my heart rate down below 130 before racing to the end of the next mile.

I want to learn to run faster and so I'm trying not to totally neglect the speed work.

4.88 miles in 1:01:52, or 12:41/mile at 126bpm.  Max was lower than usual at 134.  Still enjoying great weather at 47 degrees this morning.

About 5.5 miles in about 52 minutes, or about 9:30/mile and not a low heart rate run.  Woke up to a completely dead GPS.  So, I tried to go fast today.  It was 47 degrees this morning and it's supposed to get up to 64 degrees by 10:00 tomorrow morning.  (That would be 4 hours after the start time for the Utah Valley Marathon, in which my brother and my son will participate.)

4.65 miles in 39:16 or 8:27/mile with an average heart rate of 161bpm.  This was a run like old times.  Not running on Saturday probably gave me a big boost today.  The nice weather (56 degrees) didn't hurt.  Lack of time due to the need to get to work didn't hurt either.  Anyway, my goal was to run 8:50/min for 4-5 miles and I exceeded the goal by 23 seconds/mile.  Splits were 9:00, 8:19, 8:09, 8:26, and 8:20 (partial).

3.75 miles in 46:31 or 12:25/mile at 127bpm  Definitely an easy day, but it's what I had time for and at least I ran.

4.62 miles in 58:38 or 12:42/mile at 126bpm.  No excuses.  That's just how it came out today.  The weather was great at 56 degrees and the run felt good, like normal.  After this weekend, with all the work pressures and my wife in Arizona, I have to start doing some serious long runs.  Meanwhile, I'm trying to make sure I run daily.

I just about didn't have a running report this morning.  Karen and Brian are going to Arizona for a few days and I helped them get out the door.  But, tomorrow I'll need to cover some 6:00AM taxiing, and so I won't be running at all.  Hopefully, I can fit in a longer run on Saturday before work.

This was my first attempt at interval training.  Generally, I tried to go over half a mile as fast as I could, then I slowed down until my heart rate got below 130 ... repeat.  Results were all over the map:

4.64 miles in 45:32.  Average pace:  9:49/mile, Average heart rate:  147bpm, max heart rate 172bpm

lap   dist    pace/mile

1      .3      11:57

2      .73     8:37

3      .17     13:31

4       .71     8:07

5       .25     13:30

6        .58     7:37

7        .48     13:50

8        .68      7:45

9         .30      14:38

10        .43      8:08

10.13 miles in 2:16:07 for an average pace of 13:26/mile.  The first miles were especially slow.  Miles 5, 8, and 9 were the only ones under 13 minutes.  It felt easier at the end than the beginning, not that any of it was hard.  Hopefully, that means I burned off some of the fat from the hamburgers last night.

5.52 miles in 49:02, or 8:53/mile.  Other than the first half mile, I was trying to go fast.  Average heart rate was 154bpm, 175bpm max.  It wasn't raining, but it was overcast, 49 degrees, with fresh air.

I'm thankful that my body is holding up well and I'm starting to drop those pesky last five pounds.

5.48 miles in 1:11:35 or 13:04/mile at 125bpm, which is a little lower than usual.  I wonder if there is a lower limit on effective low heart rate training, not that I want to go there.  On the other hand, I want to make sure I don't approach that level if I'm not getting a benefit.  Low heart rate training takes long enough as it is.

I actually ran more like 5.5 miles, but I failed to get my GPS properly started at the beginning.

It was a good run at 65 degrees.  5.31 miles in 1:06:42 or 12:33/mile, average heart rate of 125bpm, max at 132bpm.  Most pleasing to me was to record two of those miles at under 12 minutes.  I have good days and not such good days, but the trend is towards progress.

Had GPS problems at the start again and the heart rate monitor wasn't working right as it registered a high of 182.  With all that included, I ran 6.31 miles in 1:18:56 or 12:31/mile with average heart rate of 127bpm.  Every split was between 12 and 13 minutes, which is unusually consistent for me.

I felt it this morning, especially towards the end of the run.  I've increased my miles a little this week and I need to be careful to guard against injury.  (Other than lightening and dogs and bears, injuries are my worst fear.)

Stats were 11.55 miles in 2:23:53 for an average pace of 12:28/mile and average heart rate of 126bpm and 138bpm max.  Other than miles 1 and 11, all other miles were between 12 and 13 minutes.  Not really a bad run, but nothing to blog about either.

5.07 miles of steep hill training in 46:19, averaging near goal marathon pace (9:08/mile), but my fast speed was more than twice as fast as my slow speed, so it was hardly a steady pace.  These were my splits:

10:07 (including warm-up and uphill)

10:55 (including very steep uphill and some downhill)

7:17 (all downhill)

8:33 (mostly downhill)

8:51 (gradual uphill)

8:14 (less gradual uphill)

Heart rate is pretty irrelevant because it started out misbehaving again, but it showed my average heart rate at 157bpm, which I think is skewed a little higher than reality.

3.25 miles in 39.13.  That's a pretty bad 5K time.  Yet I'm pretty pleased because I maintained an average pace of 12:09/mile at an average heart rate of 125bpm.  I should have gone further, but I ran out of time.

6.39 miles in 1:20:49 or 12:39/mile at 126bpm heart rate.  I walked out and didn't feel the little chill like usual.  I sky was a little overcast and I was surprised to see the thermometer reading at 77 degrees this morning.  I can't remember seeing it that warm that early before.

When there's not much to talk about on an uneventful run, there's always the weather.

5.52 miles in 53:11 or 9:38/mi  Avg heart rate:  148bpm, max heart rate 181bpm, max speed:  6:21/mile.  This was interval training.  I now believe that I can run a mile under 8 minutes with the wind at my back running downhill.  On that interval, I ran .8 miles at a 7:29 pace.  My worst interval (uphill, against the wind) was 9:16/mile for .72 miles.  The rule between intervals was to get my heart rate down below 130bpm.  Sometimes that took longer than others.

 It was 70 degrees and raining a little.