Feeling good on a 10-mile run

I am about to start Week 2 of my marathon training with the Luke's Locker Fit program. Week 1 ended with a 6 mile run on Saturday (1 mile warm-up, 4 miles at an 8:00 mile pace, then a 1 mile cool-down).

It left me with 30.89 miles for the week. That put me about 8 miles ahead of what the program is calling for. Like I wrote in an earlier post, I can handle 30 miles a week without my body breaking down. So I'll just stay put until the program catches up.

This morning (Sunday), it was unseasonably cool, like 70 degrees when I began my run at 7 a.m. My plan was to do 8 miles and keep my heart rate under 80 percent maximum.

I did 10 miles. Total time: 1:26:36 for a breezy pace of 8:39 minutes per mile.

My average heart rate for the entire run was 77 percent, though it soared over 80 percent on several occasions _ i.e. on some hills and at the end when the temperature had soared to 80 degrees.

Thanks to the magic of Garmin and SportTracks software, I know that my heart rate was under 80 percent max for exactly 1:22:53, or 96 percent of the run. That's some good base building. What helped is that I stopped at my car for ice cold water and a swig of Gatorade at the 5-mile mark. I never felt too thirsty, though my legs were a little tired from the mini tempo run I did Saturday.

Anyway, here are the splits, complete with heart rate info for those of you who are as geeky about Garmin as I am.

Mile.......time..........%Avg HR.........%Max HR
1..........9:15............68...................74
2..........8:29............75...................76
3..........8:21............77...................78
4..........8:25............78...................81
5..........8:34............79...................80
6. ........8:43............76...................80
7..........8:36............78...................79
8..........8:40............77...................79
9..........8:38............79...................80
10........8:54............80...................81

Obviously, I've got a lot more work to do before I'm ready to run the marathon. See how my heart rate climbed so much. If I had to run another 5 miles, I would have had water after mile 10, and it would have been interesting to see how much longer I could have kept my pace under a 9 minute mile AND my heart rate around 80 percent.