HADD Benchmark #1

It might be two weeks late but I finally got around to doing my HADD fitness test. I did my baseline test back in December. You can see where I was starting from here. These were today's results:

Target/Actual/Pace
140/140/10:07
150/148/8:59
160/159/8:09
170/170/7:30
180/179/6:41

For those keeping score who don't feel like looking at the previous post, here is how I improved/didn't improve.

HR/Pace Change(seconds/mile)
140/+7
150/-3
160/-7
170/-3
180/-10

Overall a I am showing good improvement. I've still got a long way to go before making a serious attempt at a sub three hour marathon. I am very happy with these results.

The differences between this test and my baseline test: location, warm up/cool down, and rest. The baseline test was not done exactly how it should have been. I didn't warm up or cool down and I ran straight through each 1.5 mile interval with no rest. This test I did right. I had a short warm up and cool down and took a 90 second rest between intervals. As for the location, I decided I didn't want to run laps anywhere so I drove down to the Foothills Trail where there is a nice, uninterrupted (read no street crossings), flat section of trail for 2 miles. This is where I did the repeats. So read into this as much or as little as you would like. I feel that the location has little affect on my paces. The rest, however, probably worked out in my favor. While I did show improvement almost across the board, it probably would have been by a slightly lower margin had I done rests in my initial test.

I signed up for a 10K race which will take place on March 10th. I'm not going to shift my training toward that distance but still hope to run a PR based on my (improving) level of fitness. Since it is six weeks until that race, I will do another benchmark test in five weeks to see if I show more improvement.

Run Strong.