30-Day Fitness Rebound, Final Update

Well I am over two weeks late writing this update to my August 30-Day Fitness Rebound, but here it is! Unfortunately I was not able to do a definitive final run in the same weather conditions etc. because we have had very unusually high temps combined with high humidity, some nights not even getting below 74 degrees. I did have a significant long run at the end of week three that I will attempt to extrapolate from to give you an idea of where I ended up. As you recall I had not run previous to this for 8 full weeks and wanted to test how my fitness would rebound over the 30 days of August. Here is a recap of where I left off beginning with my initial test.

See initial article here: http://runnersmania.blogspot.com/2013/08/30-day-fitness-rebound-begins.html

I ran 6 miles at a 10:43 Avg. pace per mile. My first mile was at a pace of 10:11 and my last mile was at a pace of 11:13. That is about a minute difference. Based on experience I know that these two extremes will get much closer together as I regain my fitness over the next 30 days. I also expect my overall pace to get faster. So I am going to look at 3 metrics for evaluation as to how much fitness I can regain in 30 days.

1. Average Heart Rate: 139.  My goal will be to be within 2 beats of this number, on either side, for my test on August 31.
2. Average pace per mile:  10:43 per mile.
3. First and last mile pace: 10:11 for first mile and 11:13 for the last mile.

Here are my progress stats end of week one:

       1.  Average Heart Rate: 142 Just a hair over my goal. 
       2.  Average Pace Per Mile: 10:06. 
       3.  First and Last Mile Pace: 9:39 for first mile and 10:41 for the last mile.

My average pace per mile improved by 37 seconds, but the difference between first mile time and last mile time stayed exactly the same at 62 seconds.

My next test run was actually a 12-mile run instead of a 6-mile run, but it is the closest run I have in this time frame under nearly the same conditions, at least starting conditions.

Run on August 24 Week Three:

1.      Average Heart Rate: 143 Two beats over my goal but not bad for a 12 mile run.

2.      Average Pace Per Mile: 9:35.

3.      First and last mile pace: 9:27 for the first mile and 8:46 for the last mile.

4.      Approximation of first and last: 9:27 for first mile and 9:46 for mile 9.

My average pace per mile improved by 68 seconds over my initial test run while the difference between first and last mile, based on approximation, was only 11 seconds.

Unfortunately the first and last mile comparisons are not valid as this was an out and back 6 miles each way where as the initial course was out and back ½ mile each way, with each mile being exactly the same terrain. In this last test the first mile was uphill and the last mile was down the same hill. However, mile 9 would approximate the same difficulty of hill the first mile so I used it as an approximation.

As you can see in just 24 days I had a significant improvement from what I had lost. During the 8 weeks of no running. I might add that during week 3 I had to take 4 days off because my left heel was too sore to run.

I believe that these results would have been even better over the same course and only 6 miles but the results speak for themselves. Unfortunately the following week the temperatures climbed and the humidity and dew point soared with dew points reaching into the low 70’s at times and greatly affecting my times, as I was not acclimated to such conditions.

Subsequent to this I ran a very challenging 20-mile run with 2400 feet of continuous elevation gain over 7.3 miles and 3400 feet of elevation loss over 12.7 miles on September 13^th, with an average pace of 9:42 and a PR for me on that course.

I not only regained my previous fitness in less than 30 days after an 8-week break from running but also actually improved on it

Happy Trails,

Russ