Saturday April 5th 2008

Saturday April 5th 2008
Last hard run before the marathon. Given the high heat index forecast I decided to run the half marathon in the gym on a treadmill. Even at 26 degrees Celcius it was a better option than 38C. I knew which machine in the gym doesn't have a 1 hour limit set, so I chose the treadmill that has up to 99 minutes, plenty of time for my 1/2 marathon. The modest goal was to beat my 1/2 marathon PB in Thailand, which I had set almost two years ago in 1:35:32 (the now discontinued ING Temple Run). I was pretty confident, since my PB for the 1/2 marathon (debut) was 1:30:30 and whilst a race/time trial per se wasn't the aim today, I knew if I wanted to I could run something between 1:33-->1:30.

So treadmill at 1% incline and I ran the following:

3 miles @ 12.9kph

5 miles @ 13.2kph

1 mile @ 13.3kph

3 miles @ 13.6kph

1.1 miles @ 14.0kph (inc. last 400m @ 15.0kph)

I ran it in 1:34:54. The whole run felt controlled and I felt strong in the last mile. Could have easily cranked up the pace at the end or increased the speed mid run by a few decimal places.

Here's my HR profile (avg 155, max 173).

Like Thursday I have drunk plenty of fluids today. Snow is forecast in the UK!

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