Week 3, Day 3 VCM Training

Goal: Run for 60 minutes in HR Zone 2.

I ran in my new minimalist shoes again tonight -Inov8 F-lite 235- on the treadmill.  I must say that I definitely feel like my feet take more of a pounding in these shoes, but I don't necesarilly feel like they are bad shoes either.  I was disappointed to find out the other day (decided to actually do some research on the shoes post purchase - go figure) that they aren't listed by Inov8 as dedicated running shoes.  They list them as a cross trainer.  I'm surprised that Fleet Feet in Syracuse would sell them as running shoes.  I suppose that I shouldn't base my opinion of them on that, but I worry that some inherent non-running design aspect will contribute to something bad (injury anyone?).

Anyway, my run tonight was almost the exact opposite of Tuesday's run.  Unlike Tuesday, where I kept feeling like I wanted to go faster, but my HR was telling me "slow down!" - Tonight, I felt tired and sluggish, but my HR was staying so LOW.  The F-Lites must have brought balance to the force though, because by the end of the run, I felt like I was working the run, but I no longer felt sluggish, or like I needed to slow down.  Sort of that feeling you get when you know you're pushing yourself a little bit, but it feels damn good to do so?  Regardless, the run wasn't supposed to be too hard, so I'll have to review some of Fink's advice in the training plan.  When I started this plan, my zone 2 was never fast, and felt damn easy.  Now I'm starting to feel like I have to push a little bit (depending upon the day of course); in order to get myself into the higher end of Z2.

I'm a little bothered, because when I hit the lap button on my Garmin after the 1st mile, I must have hit the stop button too.  I didn't realize it until just after mile 3.  Regardless: I started at 5.0 speed on a 1.5 incline.  I increased .1 speed for every .1 mile run unitl reaching 6.0 at mile 1.  I kept the speed on 6.0 until mile 2, at which point I went to 6.1.  I proceeded as such for each subsequent mile (M3=6.2, M4=6.3, etc.), so that by the end of the run I was running 6.5.  All in all, what started out as a tough heavy run, ended ok, if not good.  Burlington, I'm coming...