Saturday the group was meeting in the northern metro, which is kind of a hike. So I made arrangements with Jenna and Paul to meet at Fort Snelling. The plan called for 18 miles at MP + 10%. If I base my MP on 6:40 pace (2:55), that’d mean I’d need to run 7:20 pace. Overall, we ended up running 19 miles and averaged 7:35-7:40 pace. Given that I saw a bunch of 7:20s on my Garmin, I think it was a solid workout.
Yesterday I ran an easy 8 miles with 8 x 8 second hill sprints at the end. That gave me 63 miles for the week on 6 runs.
This morning the schedule called for 4 x 6:00 at 10K pace. Last week I ran 4 x 5:00 while running sub-6:15s. Therefore, I just decided to run 4 x 1 mile today with a 3:00 jog in between. I felt fine and thought I was running the correct pace, however, the times just weren’t there. I made the mistake of not getting a halfway split on my first repeat and ended up running 6:37. I got a half split on the second one, but it didn’t help much, I still ran 6:32. The third one was a little more respectable (6:21) but I was working pretty damn hard. I was tempted to “adapt” and bag my last one, but thought I’d take an extra minute rest and then just try to run one more a little more conservatively. It ended up being 6:43.
Of course, a workout like this leads to lots of questions. Do I need more speed? More strength? More miles? More rest? Am I just fatigued? Did I screw my running by skiing all winter? Or is this just what it’s like to get old? Do I need to add weight training? Increase my range of motion? The list goes on and on.
One thing is for certain, I didn’t run poorly because of the dog days of summer. It was 60 degrees, calm and cool. If summer ever shows up, I’ll be really slow!
My honest answer is that it’s probably fatigue. I went from being the king of easy runs to king of adding some type of stimulus to nearly every run. Here’s my last 12 days;
Thursday – moderate hilly run with last mile at MPThe good news is I feel fine – I was just slow today. I’ll keep a close eye on this though.
Friday - 4 x 8 second hill sprints
Saturday – 2 hours with the last 20 minutes at MP
Sunday – 6 x 8 second hill sprints
Monday – hilly run at Lutsen
Tuesday - OFF
Wednesday – 4 x 5 minutes at 10K pace
Thursday – moderate hilly run
Friday – strides
Saturday – 19 strong miles
Sunday – 8 x 8 second hill sprints
Monday – 4 x 1 mile at 10K pace
I’ve probably mentioned this before, but I really like watch championship events when they’re in Europe. There’s nothing like watching the Tour or the British Open (or both) with your cup of coffee and getting your sporting events out of the way early.
Ever grab a couple different leftovers for lunch and then wonder what the heck you were thinking? I just got done eating tamales and BBQ pork chop with rice. Interesting combination.
Quote of the Day;
“In a country where only men are encouraged, one must be one’s own inspiration.” – Tegla Loroupe, Kenya, 1994 NYC Marathon champion
I was thinking about the fatigue thing today too. I was supposed to do 5 recovery miles. But I added 5 x 8 second hill sprints. Then later I lifted weights and biked. Working different muscles, I know. But still, I caught myself thinking about whether I should really make recovery days just true recovery days, and whether the fact that I haven't been doing that contributed to my cruddy MP run yesterday.
ReplyDeleteSo I don't really have answers to your questions. Just the same type of questions myself!
I'd guess it's taking your body more than two days to recover from a hard 19 mile run. Did you do that before your last mile repeat workout?
ReplyDelete