8.6 miles hard

The club out-and-back session was along the canal so I wore the Merrell Trail Glove. After a 0.95-mile warm-up down to Lock 27 I set off with Joe at a decent pace with the intention of managing at least 4 miles and before we had to turn round at 25 minutes. After 2 miles we were 30 seconds per mile ahead of schedule and suspected that by trying to keep up the pace we'd probably not manage to arrive back at Lock 27 in 50 minutes. The towpath after Drumchapel was paved which wasn't ideal for the Trail Glove, but we reached 5K in around 17:50. At 25 minutes we had covered about 4.3 miles, passed the flats beside the canal on the other side of Kilbowie Road and were approaching a couple of bollards on a small hill on the towpath.

On the way back, which was slightly uphill, we dropped a few seconds here and there and got to 10K in about 36:12. I pushed on for the last couple of miles, almost dropping outside 6 minutes for the mile which finished at the Cloberhill Locks, but with not far to go I managed to pick up the pace again, dodging the crowds approaching the finish to arrive 4 seconds early. Jogged the 0.83 miles back to Garscube Estate afterwards to warm down. Evidently had some HR strap problems during miles 3 and 4 but the readings for the other miles look plausible.

8.59 miles in 49:56, average pace 5:49/mile, HR 177
Pace splits (ave. HR): 5:44 (160), 5:46 (175), 5:46 (183), 5:53 (183), 5:57 (176), 5:46 (179), 5:59 (178), 5:43 (181), 5:42 (180)
HR zones: 0.5%, 0.2%, 2.6%, 63.3%, 33.5%