Mt Washington training

Today I started to train again for the 7.6 mile run up Mt Washington in June. I took a break from the training until I knew I was officially accepted to the race. Taugh and I were meeting weekly at the NYSC on Wall Street in January and February to train, but I stopped when I took the job at Jersey Mortgage in NJ was no longer traveling into NYC. We would warm up for a mile then crank up the treadmill to an incline of 11.5 and run at a 13:30 pace building up to 4 miles. Sweat just pours off you when you are on that treadmill plodding along. He hasn't missed a week so I have a lot of catching up to do.

Today I warmed up for 1 mile at a 10:30 pace then moved the incline to 5 and kept the pace the same for the next mile. I did mile three at a 7 incline and mile 4 at a 9 incline all at 10:30 pace. I did the next 1/2 mile at 11.5 incline but had to move the speed to a 13:30 pace. I wore my heart rate monitor with interesting results.

Mile 1 - avg HR 92

Mile 2 - avg HR 118

Mile 3 - avg HR 129

Mile 4 - avg HR 137

Mile 4.5 - avg 125

last 1/2 avg 116

To put it perspective, when I ran the the 1/2 marathon in Virginia 2 weeks ago and set a personal best, my average HR was about 148 at a consistent 7 minute pace. When I went sub 2o in a 5k last week, my average HR was 157 and I was running a pace of 6:25. It's too early to say but it looks like my HR won't be the issue at Mt Washington, but my legs. I will be doing a hill workout once a week now, hopefully building back up to at least 4 miles at 11.5 incline. I figure if I can do 4 miles, I should be able to do 7.6 miles. If I am wrong, it will be a very painful June 20th.