66 minutes

Instead of going to the track I decided what I needed was an easy day out on the roads. I wore both the HRM and Garmin.  It was warm out (and going to be a hot day) so I knew that the HRM would tell me to slow down. I ran for 66 minutes and sure enough my pace dropped off sharply about half way through the run as my HR started to hit 70%. I fell just short of 6 miles over the first 60 minutes which means I grazed a ten pace. Reality sucks but after the run I felt good. So whatever pace it was, the run worked.

I have had a cough for the past month (no, it's not lung cancer). I get this cough whenever I am over training plain and simple. It is my DEW line. DEW standing for Distant Early Warming.  No new news here. This was something I dealt with back when I was a much faster runner. I may think I am not over training but the cough doesn't lie. I don't get sick. I just gradually get run down. THEN I GET A NASTY COLD.

The key for me is using the HRM or just running a heck of a lot slower than I really want to.

At 67, I can't really listen to my body because I don't hear it too well these days. Better to use tools that tell me when I am screwing up (or run woefully slow).  It's funny, when I do this, on the days I choose to run hard, the speed is there. Of course speed is relative these days.