A Disappointing Lesson ☹️

[SkiMonday]

Ten minute breaks make a huge difference to my pace! I suppose it's obvious if I think about it but I didn't. Three weeks ago, I included a parkrun in my long run. There was a ten minute pause at the start and I took another ten minutes afterwards (with my watch paused) which gave me an HM time of 2:09:31. Last weekend, I went out with the local running group with a pace of around 5:40/km (I forgot to pause my watch for some of the stops so that's a bit of an estimate). Anyhow, I thought that this week I might manage a sub 2 hour HM (non-stop). The time I recorded was 2:16:28, so nowhere near what I'd hoped for.

Still, I did push on and get my first 20 mile run (up from 18.6 two weeks ago).

[Tasha99 Marathon]

Still a great time!

[SkiMonday Ultramarathon in reply to Tasha99]

Thanks Tasha!

[GoGo_JoJo Ultramarathon]

Well done on the 20 miler! 👍🏻💪🏻😁

Auto-pause gives us a very false idea of our abilities. I've turned mine off for trail running now as real time is much more useful with mixed terrain to see how I'm really doing.

[SkiMonday Ultramarathon in reply to GoGo_JoJo]

Thanks!

Yes, auto pause does give a distorted picture. I've also noticed that my pace is much quicker after I've had a ten minute break.

[Lordi Marathon]

Turn off auto pause! It gives a very false idea of performance. I just this weekend did a 20km "joggy" run with landscape photo sessions every 4-5 km and was on HM PB pace by hitting 'pause' before each 1 min photo session - heartrate goes right down and 'fresh as a daisy' after a minute or so. So it's not the same as in a long event where you suffer heart rate drift (it just keeps going up and up because you're knacked or else it stays the same but you have to slow down.)

[SkiMonday Ultramarathon]

I think my problem is that I ignored the "fresh as a daisy" effect; I expected to maintain the same pace without breaks as with them. An well, lesson learnt!