Friday morning I performed a treadmill test – see how far you can run in 45 minutes at a 3% incline – that my coach assigned. I wasn’t looking forward to it and now I know why. It sucked. 3% is not a lot of incline, but when you combine it with 45 minutes, it’s not easy. My lungs felt fine, but I couldn’t get my legs to turnover very quickly. I only managed 5.47 miles. Luckily I have no frame of reference to judge this workout. So I don’t really feel good or bad about it – it’s just there.
Friday evening I was supposed to meet up with Mary for 7-8 miles around the lakes. However, strong winds that produced -30 wind chills lead to us cancelling that run. Instead, I ran an easy 8 on the treadmill.
Saturday was a little better, weather-wise; -2 degrees, -17 wind chill with sunny skies. I managed 10 miles outside before finishing with 3 more miles on the treadmill. Luckily only 1 of the miles was into the teeth of the wind. Those 13 miles gave me exactly 100 for the week.
Again, this morning was a little better; 5 degrees and sunny. The winds were calmer, so the wind chill was probably around 0 to -5. I ran with my training group for the first time in nearly 2 weeks. Most of the run was with Jenna and her friend Derek. After dropping Derek off after 1:40, Jenna and I added on another 30 minutes and called it 17 miles. I was hoping for 20, but a quicker 17 seemed like a solid run too.
Today's run put me over the 3rd milestone I alluded to in my last post. Frankly, I think it might be the most impressive of the 3. “Anyone” can run 100 miles in one week and 1,000 miles in 3 months is “only” 76 mpw. But, to me, 400+ miles in a 31-day stretch represents both “high” mileage and consistency. Prior to the last 3 months I’d only been above 300 miles three times in my life. I hadn’t even thought about 400 miles. In fact, it just snuck up on me.
Quote of the day:
"Good things come slow – especially in distance running." Bill Dellinger
I can't believe no-one's commented on this. Good work. I've always seen the 400 mile month as a good indication of a solid block of training.
ReplyDeleteThanks Evan, welcome back. Hope you had a good trip. Liz actually commented on another post, so don't feel too sorry for me.
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