Science says "Go Slow"

I have just realised that I haven't posted anything to this blog since the Bournemouth Triathlon (duathlon, rain-fest, whatever) twenty days ago. To be honest that day really depressed me. I don't manage to fit in many races and Bournemouth was meant to be one of my big ones for the year so to have it messed around and spoilt was very annoying and has knocked my motivation a bit. My swimming is one of the main things that has suffered, probably because I normally swim early in the morning before work and I haven't felt like getting up at 06:30. As usual I have been struggling to fit in training at the weekends but I am keeping going.

One session that I have been consistent with is my long slow run on a Wednesday evening after work. Quite why I have been consistent with this when I really don't enjoy it I don't know. For this run I have been using my Garmin HRM to keep my heart rate nice and low. My target for this run is to keep my heart rate below 165bpm and I try and average around 160, which for me is very low. For the two running legs in Bournemouth my average heart rate was 180, so 160 feels like a crawl. According to my calculations though that is the correct level for my long slow run. However, it gets depressing when every single runner on Clapham Common seems to be going faster than me. I am considering getting a t-shirt with "Science says I have to go this slow" or something similar printed on the back so that everyone running past me knows I could go faster if I wanted to.

I have also figured out that a lot of my stomach troubles after my long runs are due to drinking too much water once I have finished. After my run I was guzzling a bottle of water pretty much straight down, filling it up again and continuing to drink. That is just too much fluid, too quickly. I have found that if I am more controlled and eat something as well as drink slowly I have no problems at all. Yet anothedr area of nutrition that I need to organise properly.