Run · Friday, 9 October 2026 · Week 7, Durability Base
A windy easy run drifts over the cap late
25 weeks to MDS
The wind was the story here, a blustery five miles that still came in close to plan. The average heart rate sat one under the cap, which reads fine on its own, but just over a quarter of the run spent time above it as the pace quickened late, 12:56 for the first mile down to 12:20 for the last, heart rate climbing from 127 to 130 over the same stretch.
Nothing alarming, but another instance of the average looking steadier than the run was. I'll keep watching how often these easy runs drift over the cap late on, and whether that pattern holds once the wind isn't a factor.
- Distance
- 5 mi
- 8.1 km
- Moving time
- 1h 05m
- started 14:09
- Average pace
- 12:50
- per mile
- Heart rate
- 130
- average · max 146
- Climb
- 318 ft
- 97 m
- Conditions
- 16°C
- 73% humidity · wind 34 km/h
Planned easy run, distance changed on the day.
Heart rate against my cap
My easy running has a heart rate ceiling of 131 bpm. It keeps the effort aerobic while my legs, tendons and joints catch up with the mileage. A run counts as over the cap when the average is more than 2 beats over it, or more than a fifth of the time sits above it.
Over the cap. Average 130 bpm, with 26% of the run above 131. The fix is to slow down, walk the steeper bits if I need to, and let it settle.
Mile by mile
| Mile | Pace | Avg HR | Climb |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 12:56 | 127 | 121 ft |
| 2 | 12:18 | 130 | 26 ft |
| 3 | 13:57 | 133 | 121 ft |
| 4 | 12:42 | 131 | 52 ft |
| 5 | 12:20 | 130 | 13 ft |
Heart rate in orange is above the 131 bpm cap.
Figures from my watch via Intervals.icu, read by the Ultra Event Training app. Heart rate from a watch is a proxy for effort, not a lab measure. The efficiency figures compare speed per heartbeat early and late in a run with a hill correction; they show what changed, not the cause.