Looking at that last entry, I realized that I should clarify....that wasn't my pace for each of those miles, but for the whole race up to that point. So after that first 6:26 mile, I slowed to almost 7 pace until the last four miles or so when I finally got my act together and ran somewhere around 6:45 pace which is what I should have been doing since the beginning.
What was shocking is how sore I've been since then. Taking the day after the race off completely was probably a mistake since a few shake-out miles might have helped break up some of those nasty lactic byproducts that make the muscles hurt. I was going to try and hit 70 miles for this week, but the combination of my achy-breaky feeling legs and a worrisome sore spot on the ball of my foot have me thinking it's better to back off a bit.
Actually, I really need to just get over my obsession with getting up to 90 miles a week again and focus a little more on the basics that I've been leaving out. I need a better speed work strategy than 'run a race every week' and my longest run thus far is only 16 miles. Running more conservative distances on my everyday runs would allow more room for some faster workouts and I can start getting into the 20-miler every other week routine. I probably wont ever get much above 70 miles a week that way, but I think this rejiggered mindset has a better chance of getting me to the starting line healthy.
As for Kevin Beck's quote, have you ever noticed how much time that guy spends being injured? I can do discomfort just fine, it's just a matter of recognizing when it's the kind of discomfort that's telling you that your body needs you to back off. Is Kevin blogging again?
And as far as running a half three weeks into a training cycle, I already had a pretty consistent 50-mile a week base going into it, so the distance isn't an issue. It's just a matter of how aggressively I tackle it. I ran one in October on much less mileage in just under 1:35, so I knew that my fitness had improved since then. I just needed to test how much, to get a sense of where I am now.
Comments (4)
Nah, that makes sense, especially if you had the mileage underneath you. You just don't want to go to the woodshed to get a sense of where you're fitness is at, you know. So, it's a delicate balance of how hard you want to push (a dilemma you rendered well in your previous post, by the way).
For me--and I only mean for me here, since this is an experiment of one--even if I had some decent base, halfs just rip me up too hard to do them as fitness trials. I usually need a good six to eight weeks of workouts before getting myself into gear for one, but like I said, that's just me.
Feel better...and at the end of the day, if you run 2:4X on 75 mpw--as many female marathoners have--instead of 90, so be it. You just want to be able to get the quality in, you know...well, of course you know, sorry, just getting too chatty.
Posted by tuscaloosarunner | February 1, 2008 7:57 PM
Posted on February 1, 2008 19:57
The other thing is that I don't have any illusions that I'll be running anything in the neighborhood of 2:4X this April. If I break 3 again, I'll be thrilled and I won't even really have much confidence that I'll be able to do that if I don't get my half time down to at least 1:27.
Posted by chelle | February 1, 2008 8:13 PM
Posted on February 1, 2008 20:13
Chelle,
But there's still plenty of time to go sub 1:27. As someone who doesn't know you and the history of your training--so take this with a grain of salt--I think a sub 1:27 is actually very doable.
Posted by tuscaloosarunner | February 2, 2008 7:23 AM
Posted on February 2, 2008 07:23
You can definitely run 3-4 minutes faster than that in a couple of months, partly because of pacing.
I agree with Joseph that you don't need to race a half to gauge your fitness.
Posted by Adeel | February 2, 2008 11:25 AM
Posted on February 2, 2008 11:25