I see what you did there!
Lunchtime run today, my long 22km route. first 10km was my now familiar easy pace, arount 5:10 per km with HR below 140. I then thought I would put in 1km at IM pace, so upped to 4:40, didn’t feel particularly hard, as as each km ticked off, I just maintained that pace, then upped the pace to 4:20 for final KM. HR was completely even around 152BPM (excluding the final km). Overall HR was 146, just under 80% of run was in Z1 and Z2 and average pace was 4:50/km.
This was a confidence boosting run; it’s all well and good running at low intensity, but there is a little voice in my head saying “this is great, but can you still add some pace” - I now know that the pace is still there.
I did a similar run on the same route 11 months ago, similar pace, however, that run was solidly in Z4 with an Average HR of 162
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Definition question, not specifically for Matt:
When quoting IM pace, are you quoting run pace, or total elapsed pace including any walk breaks?
I like how you refrain from saying ‘lunch hour’ 
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for me total elapsed… although not taken any walks other than walking feed stations
Its quiet in the office, and I came in early
I thought the same!
I think I’ve done 18k or so over lunch before, but I was definitely running pretty fast to try and “get it done”. When you factor in getting changed before, plus shower and changing after, even 90mins is easily 2hrs away from the desk.
Personally, I’d be quoting the pace when I was running. My walk break tactic was 20s roughly every 3k, so most km splits are not impacted by the walking. That’s what I practised in training anyway, but on raceday it was just walking through whichever aid station best aligned with that kind of gap