The legs felt good this morning. That’s a long time ago. Maybe I’m becoming greedy, but now I want a new personal record on the 30 kilometers.
I admit, I have been getting worried lately. My fitness isn’t as I expected it to be. It feels more like the level of fitness I had in February/March. That’s before the 5 ultras I have run in the past couple of months. Last Saturday, for example, I ran a marathon in training and I was struggling in the second half of it. I thought I had a bigger base.
Low Heart Rate running
This morning however, my legs felt great. Sure, I was going slow, but for slow I actually was running pretty fast. Are you still with me? Let me explain; I wanted to do an easy run. In my case that means staying below a heart rate of 146 beats per minute. Doing that, I could run around 6.30 to 6.45 minutes per kilometer. For me that’s not too bad in Heart rate zone 2.
This weekend I have my last long run planned, before I will run the Trail des Fantomes on August 12. With 68 kilometers, that’s going to be my longest run ever. It’s 2,5 weeks from now, so I am already tapering. Yet, one big, more intense run isn’t bad, 2 weeks before a race. That’s why I started to think about running my 30 kilometer long run this weekend a bit faster.
Running fast
How fast was the question. Looking at my Strava I noticed that my personal record on the 30 kilometers stands at 3 hours, 16 minutes and 22 seconds. Interestingly enough I ran that April 30, during the Brabantse Ultra Trail Run. That was a 50 kilometers race. So if I just do 30, I should be able to be faster, shouldn’t I?
Well, that is; if I’m in shape. See, April/May last year was the moment I felt best. I ran the Brabantse Ultra Trail only a week after the Mighty Marathon. I also ran my fastest trail marathon during the Brabantse Ultra Trail. Beating my previous time – set on February 11 at the Run Forest Run Ommerland – by 20 minutes. That’s a lot.
Third fastest 30 kilometers
Which brings us back to my feeling. As I just told you, I feel like my form is the same as February/March. That’s when I ran Run Forest Run Ommerland. I actually ran my third fastest 30k there: 3:26:19. So beating that time would already be good.
However, I want more. I want to beat 3:16:22. Which means I have to run faster than 6 minutes and 33 seconds per kilometer. Based on my legs this morning it means I can do that, staying in heart rate zone 2 and 3 mostly. That means it’s going to be easy. But there is always theory and reality. So let’s see if reality will hand me a new personal best.
