Yes! Sara just ran a new personal record on the 5 kilometers; 31 minutes and 13 seconds. That’s 59 seconds faster than her old record. I’m super proud of her.
Okay, this time she ran on the road. The old record she set on a trail. The road is always faster. I recently read somewhere that the energy you get back from the road is 3 times as big as on an average trail. That’s a lot. You can kind of look at it as a tennis ball. If you let it fall on asphalt it will bounce up high, but if you let it fall on sand, it will hardly bounce up at all. Same for your feet. If you land on asphalt, you get propelled forward. On sand you have to push of yourself.
But still, a minute is a lot. I mean, it was only a 5 kilometer run. That means she was 12 seconds per kilometer faster. That’s a lot faster!
Lactate threshold test
The record was in the back of our minds. The goal this morning was to determine Sara’s lactate threshold. To do that, we went out for a 30 minutes all out run. We knew she would run almost 5 kilometers in that half an hour, so if she was feeling good, we would push on for another minute or so.
Well, she did. She felt strong, so we ran for another couple of hundred meters and she beat her old record of 32 minutes and 12 seconds. The funny thing is, I just wrote a blog this week telling you how much fun it is to be an old runner if you’ve never ran before. Simply, because you’re still able to set new records, like Sara did this morning.
Sara didn’t only set a new 5 kilometers record, but she also ran a personal record on the 1 kilometer. The last kilometer she gave it all, running 5 minutes and 56 seconds per kilometer. That’s the first time ever she ran faster than 6 minutes per kilometer.
Mighty Marathon
As for her lactate threshold, she ran 4.770 meters in 30 minutes. That’s 2,65 meters per second. Which means her lactate threshold is 6 minutes and 17 seconds per kilometer. If you like to know, how I’ve done the calculations, just have a look at the blog: What Lactate Threshold is and why it matters. You’ll find it at the part: Do your own test.
The only thing we have to do now, is to go out again in a couple of days, run at a pace of 6 minutes and 17 seconds and see what heart rate Sara has when she runs that fast. That way we know the pace and the heart rate that goes with her lactate threshold. Pace is handy on the road, but heart rate comes in hand on the trails.
As for me, I was happy with this run. Mostly for Sara, but also because my average heart rate was 131 beats per minute, which means I stayed in zone 2. I think I’m ready for the Mighty Marathon at the MUT Festival, two weeks from now.
