So the girls are spending the night at Grandma's. It's just my wife and I at home. And I'm sitting here blogging. Afterwards I'll probably go and play a killer game of baseball on x-box and then watch the TdF. It's a wild and crazy life - I know.
Yesterday's post talked about wanting to get buffed and ripped, but not wanting to put in the effort. In a comment I wrote that I just don't have the time. Later I was thinking that this really isn't true. After putting the girls to bed I have about 75-90 minutes before I have to hit the hay. Sure I could lift and do crunches during that times (and sometimes I do), but sometimes a guy just wants to have some chips, drink a beer and watch TV.
The same goes for stretching. How many people have been injured and swear that "once they're healthy" they'll continue doing all the stretching, strength training, etc. that their doctor recommends. But once they are healthy, they go right back to their old ways. When the ART doctor gave me to active release stretches, I swore I'd do them no matter what. Well that lasted for about a week. It didn't help that my calves actually felt better the days after I didn't stretch. Oh well, I'm all talk.
This morning's run may have been my last before the heatwave strikes. It was a comfortable 65 degrees. "Luckily", we haven't had any rain in about 2 months, so the humidity has been low. I set my alarm to 4:50, which allowed me to get in 11 miles. I didn't push as hard as yesterday, but it wasn't an easy run either.
Unlike these people that record each mile (yes, you know who you are), I just develop a few efforts for my miles. For example, yesterday's harder run is somewhere in the 7:30-7:45 range. Today's moderate run was closer to 8:00. Easy recovery days are 8:30. Then I just run for X minutes and divide by the pace that corresponds to the effort and tada...that's how many miles I ran that day. No, it's not exact, but my body isn't going to know the difference whether I log today's 90 minutes at 10 miles, 11 miles or 12 miles. No matter what I put in my log, the work has already been done.
i never log my exactly splits.
ReplyDeleteha ha ha :)
Nice post - we could all learn a thing or two from you. You really seem to enjoy your running rather than obessess over your running like some of us do myself includeed. After all that is why I'm "changing".
ReplyDeletei usually stretch when i start to have a problem. same with getting body work. it's a case of do as i say, not as i do...or we all do.
ReplyDeleteKeep in mind, I didn't say that I never record exact splits - I just don't do it on every run. If I'm doing a track workout, tempo or marathon pace then I can be obsessed too.
ReplyDeletemassoman, yeah it's hard to really make any long term changes.
Zeke, I do 30 minutes of weights 3 days a week. That's it. It's not alot but it's something and it's consistent....and it doesn't take alot of time!!! Try it, you get about 78 hours of weights in over a year....that's better than 0 hours :-)
ReplyDeleteYou bring up a good point. Sometimes it's good to just get out there and run xxx amount of minutes not worrying too much about the pace. At the end of the run, you could get an approximate avg./mile by feel. Sometimes wearing a GPS watch or POD will get you tempted to run at a specific pace (especially when its an easy day).
ReplyDeleteLance, you're right but things are never as easy as the seem on paper. My post today addressed this a little.
ReplyDeleteWayne, yeah I basically approximate everything. Heck, even if I'm off 30 seconds per mile (which I think is a lot), I'd probably still be +/- two or three tenths of a mile for an hour run.