Astros Race for the Pennant 5k

Last weekend I had a particulary great workout that seemed a bit too good to be true. As a result I decided to test out my fitness to see if it could possibly be true with a 5k. I was running 10.4 (5:46) on the Treadmill at 163 HR and 9.0 (6:40 mpm) at 150 HR which is right where I was 2 years ago - note the graph here from almost exactly 2 years ago.

I've kinda grown up in this adult athlete phase on using the HRM for training/racing - for 10/11 marathons - and I'm always looking for why the HR behaves one way or another day to day or week to week to find an edge. Anyway as I've been biking a lot this year I noticed a currious pattern in my HR - for the next couple/few days after a long bikeride my HR runs 6-8 bpm lower - or rather I can maintain a faster running pace for the same HR (effort seemed higher but hard to tell as I've been doing mostly slow running). I was wondering if I could indeed run faster after the long bikeride - I seemed to be able in a workout last weekend where my HR vs pace was about what it was a couple years ago pre-injury.

I even started a thread on it over on letsrun

So the race was a test to see if I could deliver the extra speed in a race. After a 46 mile bikeride in the heat on Friday with a little running right after - I raced a 5k today. I did find a lower HR in the race - max'd out at 176 vs 184 a couple years ago - so now I'm thinking the maxHR is what is lower in this post biking state and I'm not actually faster in this state (or at least not much faster) but rather my HR just runs lower - no easy tricks here to be faster as far as I can tell - I just need to keep training and knock off a dozen pounds to get to where I've been. But it was an interesting experiment regardless - and this being my first real race in 1.5+ years - it was a blast to be out there pushing again.

Results:
Pennant 5k '08 vs '10:
Splits '08: 5:19(163),5:32(176),5:40(180),0:34(184) total 17:06 (5:31 mpm) 59.7 VDOT
Splits '10: 5:35(158),6:11(171),6:02(173),0:34(176) total 18:24 (5:56 mpm) 54.9 VDOT

Weather '08 78°F/77% Humid
Weather '10 78°F/83% Humid (yeah 6% makes a difference - but not that much)

Weight: '08 ~152, '10 ~165 (some of the extra is muscle for bike/swim but not that much)
Weight Adjusted VDOT - 54.9 * 165/152 = 59.6 - same as '08 race so O2max is about the same just takes more energy to move the extra dozen pounds...

Award '08 1st AG - won new shoes,
Award '10 4th AG - nada - missed 3rd by 3 seconds (grrrrrr - always hate the ones that get away).


So - current fitness - 54.9 VDOT (temp adjustment - 56.6 VDOT). If that is true than my training paces should be around:

MP - 6:33, LT - 6:11, VO2max - 5:43

This still doesn't quite makes sense with last Sunday's treadmill workout:

5 miles at 5:46 mpm (6:00 equivalent Outdoor),
6.5 miles at 6:40 (6:57 EQ),
1.5 miles at 5:30 (5:44)

.....so I'm estimating my current fitness closer to 57-58ish (2:50 marathoner range) - not bad for only running since February on currently ~30-35 miles/week (+ crosstraining).

...and apparently I need to take off a few bpm from my training HR targets after a long bikeride.

------------------------------
5/30 - 15 mile treadmill to test out my new pace targets (in the cold room - chilled into the 60s for the morning workout) - 6:40TM~7:00 outside, 6:15TM~6:30 MP Pace:

1 6:40 145
2 6:40 146
3 6:40 147
4 6:40 148
5 6:40 148
6 6:40 150
7 6:40 149
8 6:40 149
9 6:40 149
10 6:40 150
11 6:15 155
12 6:15 157
13 6:15 157
14 6:15 157
15 6:15 159

The 6:15 felt like MP - like I could sustain it - unlike last weeks 5:45s where I found it very tough to sustain for 5 miles. So it appears my MP Heartrate for training need revision - 2008 162ish, 2010 157ish - at least after a long bikeride anyway. Good to know where I'm at - glad I did the race to confirm in fact - it WAS to good to be true.