Lifelong athlete. 37yr old male. College baseball player. Have been lifting weights for 15 years. Very consistent with my diet, in fact I have my diet dialed in and track calories eat nothing but whole foods.
I've been running for over a year, off and on due to calf and achilles injuries but mostly on. I am on week 10 of a 20-week half marathon plan.
If you look at me, I look very fit. People assume I am very fit because I have decent muscle mass and I'm pretty lean (around 10-11%bf right now). But I really struggle running. I just ran a 7-miler for my long run and it killed me. A freaking 12:53 pace, started at 5am and finished around 6:30am. I am deliberately running in zone 2 to build my endurance base using my Garmin watch and chest strap. I couldn't have run any faster if I wanted to. Running so slow but my average heart rate was 149bpm. All of my other health factors are very good. 48bpm resting heart rate. 7-8 hours of sleep a night. Weight lifting 3 days a week. Running 3 days a week. All blood work in January was great.
Before I focused on my endurance I got my mile time down to 7:33 at around 80-90% effort. I just feel like I should have a better base by now and even though building the mileage takes time I feel like I'm way too slow for how long I've been running.
Am I doing something wrong? Any advice or feedback for me?
your technique probably sucks, there is tons of content out there how to be a better more efficient runner by changing your technique
I'm sure it isn't good. Im a mid-to-fore foot striker. But I don't know how the rest of my form looks.
What cadence does your watch report?
On my last run, the 7-miler, it was an average of 159spm. That's slow even for me. I normally am around 180spm.
I wonder if you are over striding, resulting in a lower cadence... Breakdown of form can absolutely tire you out
I'm not sure what's more critical right now, a lactate test or gait analysis. Both are around $130USD, so I would prefer to pick one now and another later if they would be beneficial.
I'm wondering if just "assuming" both are wack, and overcorrecting might be beneficial.
Enforce an even lower heart rate (135?) to artificially shorten the stride.
Add some more glucose in the 90 minutes before run?