This Saturday I'll participate in a charity run where you find people sponsoring you and they will donate based on how many laps (400m) you manage to run in 2 hours.
My longest run so far was a 10 km run with a pace of 5:30 (very exhausted afterwards) and once with a pace of 6:15 (felt like I could have gone another 30 mins, however my HR steadily climbed from around 160 to 180 at the end).
My two questions to you experienced runners:
- What would a good strategy for running the longest distance possible in 2 hours?
- Is my HR an issue? It didn't seem to really stabilize and was around 180 for the last 10 mins. Will it plateau if I run more than the 60 mins or will I run out of energy before?
PS: I know running that long without proper training might be stupid but I'm determined to make my sponsors pay.
Is it just based on how far you go? If so, your best option is probably a combination of running/walking. Take plenty of walk breaks to let your HR come down, but you'll keep making progress. You're probably not going to run a Half-Marathon distance in 2 hours with this strategy though.
Yes. Max distance in 2 hours is the goal. Do you recommend running until I'm tired and then including walking breaks or taking walking breaks from the very beginning?
Don't wait until you are tired or it will be too late to really help. Decide ahead of time to run for a set period, 5 or 10 minutes, then walk for a minute. Keep the running pace pretty easy and you will be able to go a long way. Don't worry too much about your heart rate, at least for the first half hour, as long as the pace feels good. Your heart rate may drift up for the whole race, but, after the first half hour, shouldn't increase quickly.
Thanks for the advice!