Feeling Better!

I woke this morning and I could tell that my heart rate was significantly down from the past few days.  Being so in tune with my pulse, I recognize abnormal variances.   Over the last several days I can feel the spikes after only the slightest movements.  This morning's low heart rate and OHR are back down to metrics from two weeks ago! Today is the first time over since June 27th where the current day's OHR was lower than both the 5 day and 3 week averages. A clear sign the body is recovering!   Given I've had only one good low HR day, it isn't surprising to see that my 5 day trend is still significantly higher than my 3 week.  The variance is so significant (+5 to 10 bpm) that I feel fortunate to not have suffered a multi-day meltdown. As part of the recovery effort I took Thursday completely off, reduced Friday to an easy 5 mile road run, and will enjoy another easy 5 miler today.  Over-training impact can range from illness (mono), months of down-time, to just a few days of unplanned downtime.  I don't mind the 5 day average being above the 3 week trend line during a hard week, but not to this level.  As expected, I will monitor this closely, as I am targeted to go after my first sub 5hr 50k Sunday morning.  Before I take off, I must see similar results.

A quick running log review opened my eyes up to how much stress I've put my body under this past month.  While no single week has generated anything near my highest mileage totals (though, this week will be close after the 50k with 85 miles), I've run 2 training marathons, two long back to back days (34 and 41 miles each), and paced a friend over his last 30 miles.  My running 30 day total is 250 miles. The culmination of this will be the 50k.  In looking at this, it builds confidence that I am developing my endurance, despite some of the struggles during the 2nd day of my most recent back to back session. The training plan continues with focus on endurance (base building) through August, but I will start to introduce a little bit of strength training by adding some more hills.  September will see a slight drop in mileage as I add more focused aerobic and lactic threshold training.

Thanks for all the support!