Run 23 – The Lunar Landing. 20/07/2019
It is 50 years since the first time that man had parked a vehicle on the moon. So to celebrate it made sense to do a run to Lunar Park in St Kilda. And to honor the Apollo 11 mission, why not run 11 laps (obits) of Lunar Park. And just like the Apollo 11 mission, it was the return to home that was the most difficult.
Another of the variables I am trying to understand is the taper and the amount of rest between runs to optimise performance. After the first 22 runs I was starting to feel tired and sore, so decide to allow myself the full week break to assist recovery. In addition I started with the goal of not going above a 150 heart rate. That only lasted a couple of kilometers and when that was too hard I changed to 155. Held that goal for about 14km and then agreed with myself to move it to 158, but pushing it too soon risks blowing up. A half marathon is not a sprint, it’s more like a half of a marathon. Then when I got to 17km I gave up altogether on controlling my heart rate, but that doesn’t mean I was able to run much faster.
Going forward I will focus a bit more on heart rate and tempo and will leave breaking the 1 hour mark until later in the campaign. My body was very happy to hear this news.
My Three Learnings
Running multiple laps of a tourist destination gets you some strange looks.
It’s hard to run to a constant heart rate.
A fast time shouldn’t be the goal for every run.