SLUGGISH AND UNGAINLY

Right after posting yesterday’s entry, it occurred to me that it’s more of a lack of doubt. Of course, there’s doubt surrounding what the weather will be like, how my legs will feel on race day, how my stomach will handle breakfast, what my nerves will be like, etc. However, right now, there’s no doubt that I can handle 6:40 pace. Again, at Chicago I wanted to run 6:40 pace, but I had doubts. So when I ran 6:50 pace, I basically said, “See you were right all along. You can’t handle 6:40 pace.”

Now whether or not I run 6:40 pace on June 16th is a different story. But at least I won’t go in doubting that I can run that pace.

I forgot to mention that yesterday was an easy 6 miles with some strides. This morning I ran another tempo workout. When I started the workout, I was planning on running 3 x 2 miles around 6:15-6:20 pace with 2:00 rest, similar to last Thursday’s workout. However, I wasn’t feeling it. Right before crossing the first mile split, I changed the workout to 6 x 1 mile with 1:00 rest. I figured the way I felt, it’d be easier to focus for 1 mile than 2 miles. The workout turned out to be a ladder and not the kind I prefer to run, as my times got faster and then slower; 6:26, 6:20, 6:17, 6:19, 6:22, 6:32. I will admit I lost focus the last two repeats.

This workout had me wondering if this is an area that I could work on. It was suppose to be at tempo pace. Given that I’ve raced 10K at 6:05 pace and a half marathon at 6:15 pace, my tempo pace should be around 6:10. Yet I can’t even run mile repeats at 6:20 pace.

Quote of the day;

“You’re bound to have days when everything seems sluggish and ungainly and you’d just as soon not be training at all. That’s a good time to persist.” – James Fixx