I hardly slept last night and felt like crap when I turned off the alarm at 5:15 (before it went off). I just had too much on my mind. When I'm working on some problem, I often have a hard time shifting gears and getting to sleep. But off to run I went...
I drove in to work with the plan of running the 2 miles to the high school track, doing something, and then running back. I checked one of Joseph's comments and grabbed a workout -- 3 miles @ MP, 800m, and 3 miles @ tempo. (Don't let it go to your head Joseph, I figure anything marathon pace and/or tempo-ish would do.) I mulled it over on the drive in and damn that sounded hard. I was figuring 400m splits for 7:30 pace were when the news guy said "currently 75 degrees" on the radio. (Looking at wunderground, it was indeed 75 deg with a 67 dew point.) Hmmm. I'll start off at 7:30 or a little slower and see how it feels.
Time Distance Split time Split distance Split pace Avg. HR
0:09:37 1.00 9:37 1.00 9:38 142 (71%)
0:18:45 2.00 9:06 1.00 9:07 132 (66%)
0:19:57 2.13 1:11 0.13 9:26 134 (67%)
0:27:32 3.16 7:35 1.03 7:20 154 (77%)
0:35:01 4.18 7:29 1.02 7:22 161 (80%)
0:42:28 5.20 7:26 1.02 7:17 165 (82%)
The 3 miles (1600m actually) were 7:35, 7:29, and 7:26 and went very smoothly. It actually felt like a reasonable marathon pace. The heart rates even look a bit conservative (although I was at 168 on the last lap). Too bad I can't run this thing on a track!
0:46:53 5.70 4:25 0.50 8:55 150 (75%)
OK, Joseph. 800 meters rest? Man, you're generous. During this, I started negotiating with myself. Do I really want to run 3 miles at tempo? Well, I'm supposed to run 13.1 in a week. How about doing HM pace? Well, maybe dream HM pace (6:52 = sub-1:30).
0:53:54 6.70 7:00 1.01 6:57 170 (85%) -- a little slow out of the gate
1:00:45 7.72 6:51 1.01 6:46 179 (90%) - perfect
1:07:37 8.72 6:51 1.00 6:49 183 (91%) - perfect again
This was definitely faster than HM pace. After the first mile, I decide to find my threshold by feel and run just below it, which is basically 10-mile pace. The 183 seems a little high for mile three, but then again I did 5.5 with 3 at MP as a warmup! My cherry blossom 10-miler splits were 163, 178, 180, 182, 183, 182, 183, 184, 182, 184, so 183 is basically my steady-state 10 mile effort. I think it's reasonable to say that was 10-mile pace. Given the weather, I'm pretty happy with that. On the other hand, I was thinking, "Good lord. I have to do 13.1 like that in a week. Holy ****!"
1:25:09 10.56 17:31 1.84 9:32 154 (77%)
Warmdown. Stopped at a light near work and just felt like walking in from there. (I don't walk enough after running. I really think it helps.
There seems to be kind of a gap between my MP and my 10-mile pace right now. After how easy 7:30 felt, I thought I might do much better at the 3 tempo miles. I guess it makes sense though considering I haven't work LT at all. Also, the weather might have been a factor as I got hotter.
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I haven't updated the status on the knee, which of course means it's improving -- I'm more prone to complain, I guess. I've been icing and taking vitamin-I about half the time (when I remember) after my runs.
I think the big improvement has been in avoiding hills as much as possible. For instance, yesterday's easy run was at the high school track. I have to mention this... While I'm there, a guy walks onto the infield, stretches about 10 minutes and then does four, maybe six, laps at about 8-8:30 pace and then runs one lap at what must have been flat out because he bends over and grabs his shorts when he finishes. Then he walks off and leaves. What was he doing? Maybe he was just curious to see how fast he could run 400 meters.
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Man, I'm feeling chatty today. Since I complain so much, I have to mention how incredibly lucky I am with running options. I have so many routes to choose from it's ridiculous. I have two beautiful lake paths 2.25 and 6.5 miles from my house. I'm 3 miles from the cross county trail and theoeretically I think I could run to Pennsylvania on that. I can run 10.5 miles to work entirely on sidewalks on trails and there's a shower there. I have a HS track 2 km from my house and 2 miles from my work (the one near work is *very* nice). I have a 0.1-mile track 0.25 miles from my house and a 0.25-mile grass field loop there as well. I have treadmills at home and at work and an elliptical at work if I'm injured. That's a pretty damn sweet deal.
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