Date: 3/19/22
Training Day: 104
Miles: 9
Time: 130 min
Shoes: Altra Lone Peak 4.5
Weather: Low 50s

How It Felt: Pretty darn good! Keeping the pace easy made me feel like I could go forever.

Commentary: Guess who kept her heart rate low for her entire long run? That’s right! This girl! My pace was stupid slow, as in I could power walk as fast as I was running. But taking it easy felt so much better than pushing myself.

Usually I try to keep my heart rate close-ish to 15 bpm on my long runs. On climbs I try to maintain a decent pace and ignore my heart rate. On downhills I push myself. This time when I hit a climb, no matter how slight, I slowed way down to keep my heart rate down. While I did pick up a little bit of speed on the downhills, I still kept my heart rate down.

I thought going so slow would drive me crazy, but I actually enjoyed it. There was no stressing out about my pace. Not once was I out of breath. By the end of the run I still felt great, like I could keep on going. It left me wondering why on earth I didn’t jump on the low intensity bandwagon before.

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