Still improving

I was at my peak 6 weeks before the London Marathon. I knew this because of the treadmill session I did at the gym. The next day I did the Mad March Hare 20, picked up a stomach virus, and it all went downhill from there. Although I got most of my fitness back for London, I was never quite as fit as before the Mad March Hare, a fact backed up by subsequent gym sessions.

Each time I go running I record my pace and heart rate. This gives a good indication of fitness, but unfortunately conditions are never the same. Gradient affects heartrate, as does terrain, wind speed, and temperature. I found temperature a particular problem yesterday: in 25 degrees of bright sunshine my heartrate was 5-10bpm higher than usual, and I had to drop my pace accordingly.

The great thing about gym treadmill sessions is they are all conducted under the same conditions: same temperature, wind free, and same pace and gradient: 1deg incline, 10kph (although I may have to increase the pace if my fitness continues to improve at the rate it has been).

My gym stats don't really tell me anything about potential race performance as they are run at a much slower pace. I am uncertain how treadmill performance transfers to road performance, although I gather the 1deg incline does give a similar resistance as wind resistance when running. Allowing for the generally higher temperatures in the gym compared to outside though, my pace on a 1deg treadmill does seem to compare favourably with my road pace for a given heart rate.

So where were we? Ah yes: the fitter I get, the lower my treadmill heart rate gets. Today I saw my best treadmill results so far. I'm still getting faster. Today's session was 2 or 3 beats lower than my previous best, 6 weeks before London. This should be worth 10 seconds per mile, or 4 minutes off my marathon time. Nice!

Here's the piccy:

Today's trace is in red, my previous best 12 weeks ago is in blue. (Today's cool down was a bit different to last time's, hence the quicker tail off at the end)

I hope I'm posting a similar story in 12 weeks time!