My mother-in-law needed a ride to the airport at 4:30 this morning. Most “normal” people would be like “WTF?” For me, I only needed to get up 30 minutes earlier than normal. Plus, it was a great opportunity to get in a longer run on a week day. My only goal for the day was to get in 2 hours. Given the way I felt yesterday I wasn’t going to even think about my pace. If I ran 9:00 pace, so be it. 2 hours is still 2 hours.
At the start of my run my legs were really heavy, but within 15 minutes I started to feel great. 3 miles later I decided to take a split for a mile just to see where I was at. It felt like I was moving pretty well, but I never really know – especially during a morning run. I wasn’t going to be surprised if my watch said 8:30. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised by the 7:45 reading.
After an hour I turned around and was still feeling really good. I decided to take advantage of the feeling and push the pace a little. On the way back, I ran a 5 mile (Zeke “certified”) stretch in 38:10 or 7:38 pace. My breathing felt really relax and I had a nice quick turnover. Having bone-dry pavement really helped – along with absolute calm conditions and 32 degrees. I added on a bit at the end for 2:01, which I called 15 miles.
Two days ago I called myself a slow poke for running over 9:00 pace. Runs like that make me worry that all the easy running I’m doing really isn’t helping. You know, “Long slow distance makes long slow runners.” While I feel I’ve added in a few stronger aerobic days, I need a lot more – but not just yet. I’m going to continue building through next week and then take another cutback week. If I can build for another 3-week cycle after that, I think I’ll be ready to bump up the intensity. That will give me the last 4 weeks of the base phase to incorporate more up-tempo runs.
I keep forgetting to mention this, but congrats to Daniel and Jose (two of my teammates) for completing the Western Australia Ironman last month. Daniel finished 99th in 10:38 while Jose finished in 13:51 (not bad for not being able to run for the last 8 weeks due to a stress fracture). Maybe DGC can find strength, inspiration, solace, etc. in Jose’s results.
Glad to hear that you had a good run. I also question the long slow theory at times.
ReplyDeleteOn another note I am hopefully going to purchase the Pacemaster Gold Elite on Monday when I get back home. A local fitness store has them on sale for $1699 with 0% financing for 6 months. My wife really wants one and of course who am I to argue? Thanks for bringing the treadmill purchase back into my view with your post a few weeks ago.
I feel the same way when I dod so many long runs at a really slow pace, I worry that I will never be fast again...
ReplyDeleteRob, glad I could help. $1,699 is awesome! I paid $1,999. I was reading the owner's manual the other day and it actually has some really neat features, like cummulative data for up to 4 runners, and total time and miles that the treadmill was used, a fitness test, it tracks aerobic "points", etc. I'll probably never use those features, but I could see how'd they'd help motivate someone "just" trying to get in shape.
ReplyDeleteElizabeth, part of it for me is that when I try to go fast again my mind says "man, this is too fast" even if my body feels fine.
Zeke certified means I've taken my bike along the course and measured out mile markers.
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