Good Week

While my mileage has been less than usual this winter, my fitness seems to be pretty solid, especially over the last two weeks. I've been training religiously with my heart rate monitor and my workout pace has dropped significantly over the last month or so. The HRM teaches discipline by forcing you to stay in the correct training zone, regardless of how slow it may be. This was vital when I was coming back from my hamstring pull at club nationals -- forced me to ease back into things. Each week I've been doing a 3 mile tempo run at 85-90% of my maximum heart rate (anaerobic threshold zone), with the other key runs being 9 milers in the aerobic zone (60-70% of MHRR). Over the winter my pace on the easy runs has dropped down to about 7:30 pace give or take and the last tempo I did was at 6:03 pace (one month ago, I could only muster 6:29 pace). I've also been lifting once a week. My friend Matt has a lot of free weights in his basement and I've been doing a pretty solid workout that focuses on the main muscle groups, consisting of bench press, rows, squats, military press, overhead rows and lunges. My first race this year will be a 5K on March 30.