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July 21, 2007

Paces, and oh I forgot to mention ...

that I'm running the half that accompanies the San Francisco Marathon a week from tomorrow! How weird. We've had it on the calendar for so long while I've been out of shape I just never really took it seriously. But as of now I'd like to give it a good shot, unless my dad and brother really want my company for 13.1 miles (Dad's shooting for 2hrs.) When I signed up I was so far out of shape I couldn't imagine being in shape by now, so I put myself with the 1:45 - 2 hr finish wave. That's still probably not ridiculously slow for me right now. McMillan predicts a 1:40 half based on my 3-mile from two weeks ago, and I think this course (the first half, over the Golden Gate Bridge and back) won't be an easy one.

Speaking of slow, I'm finding it amusing that people don't believe me when I tell them how slow I do my recovery runs and how slow I start all of my runs. I'm a 9-minute miler! And my first mile is generally between 9:30 and 10:00! To be honest, I don't really find it "amusing." I find it annoying. What's wrong with 9:00 miles?! Seriously. Why do people care how fast they run their first mile or their recovery runs? We were all happily running along on Wednesday at the beginning of our mid-week long-ish effort when I called out that we were running 9-min pace. The pace picked up shortly after that. I'm sorry. That's what's comfortable for me - it's nothing to be ashamed of. And I actually think most people find that pace comfortable; there's just a stigma about it ...

Also speaking of slow, I did do a progression run on Friday morning. We broke it into thirds, with 9:00 for the first three, 8:15 or so for the middle 3, and then finishing up hard on the last three with ... with ... 7:45! Awesome. I'm not kicking myself too much because I have a slew of excuses - the trail is slow, it was raining and my shoes were wet - but mostly I'm not kicking myself because the effort was exactly as it was supposed to be. I just hope in a few months it's a lot faster!

15 miles tomorrow. It's been raining cats and dogs here for WEEKS. It's been cooler, which is nice, but even with two pairs of shoes in rotation I find it hard to have a dry pair each day to run in!

Posted by jenandmats at July 21, 2007 9:33 PM

Comments

Hey, you'll never hear me complain about your pace on recovery runs or at the start of a run. It's one of the reasons I love running with you.

Posted by: hokgardner at July 22, 2007 5:56 PM

Good luck in your half marathon Jen! Can't wait to hear about it! :)

By the way - I always ran my recovery runs way too fast in the past and now with my HR dictating my tri training I've slowed WAYYYYY down. And guess what? I actually RECOVER during my recovery runs. Imagine that! :)

Posted by: Beth at July 24, 2007 8:24 PM

That's good to hear, Beth - especially since your HR training seems to be working so well for you!

Y'hear that, Heather? I'm not the only one who thinks slow is good!

Posted by: jenandmats at July 24, 2007 9:06 PM