October 23rd, 2010
Yesterday’s blog post was put in action today and boy, do I have great feelings about this! Forgive me Facebook folks, this is basically the update I just posted but I’m so pleased, it deserves blog detailing as well.
Today was a tempo run: 9mi with 6@HP. 61 degrees with 10mph wind.
Implementing my old style, instead of doing my usual slow couple miles before the workout, I left the house with pep in my step. I wasn’t shooting for anything special, just wanted to feel energized. So with huge surprise, my first two miles were 7:53 and 7:45 (a full minute faster per mile than my usual warmup miles). I was looking at my Garmin thinking “Girl, you are going too fast” but since my heartrate was averaging 158, I said screw it. I did have a thought that maybe this peppy beginning might make my tempo miles harder but figured at least I’ll know for next time.
Once the tempo miles started, I had some dodging and weaving thanks to the Dragonboat races on the river which brought a ton of people out on the path. I was going for 7:10s and Garmin told me I was doing that (going as low as 7:03s), but once home, when I added the real splits off the bike path, it came out to 7:13s, oh well…still cool by me.
The cooldown mile home was 8:11. That one surprised me the most. I was thinking that my cooldowns will be slower from here on in, as in, actual cooldowns…but I ran what felt right and that’s what it came out to.
Of course, this is just one run but it now holds a place as the fastest pace I’ve averaged for a run in a non-race situation (7:29s). Neat-o! Though no worries folks, I’m not going to race my training runs, heart rate will be a major player in keeping it all “legal”.
So we’ll see if picking up the pace here and there ends up picking up my pace as a whole. I can’t see how it won’t.
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Go for it! Though the 61F temp was moderate the dew point was low at 34F so you were definitely running in near optimal conditions – unlike the discouraging dog days of summer.
Yep, ’twas a gorgeous day out there. Kudos on your weather scouting skillz.
great job! i definitely have found that the pace i start out with largely dictates the pace for the rest of the run. especially in races. YAY for pep in your step — i definitely think that fast begets fast. so i’d suspect that picking up the pace here and there would be good
Congratulations on hitting that magic sub 7.30min mile pace! I am just trying to recover from a running injury and really should add some intervals to my training to help with the fitness…but they are just so knackering!
My Running Blog :-)
Sounds very good. So much of this is feeling comfortable and confident with what you’re doing. This sounds like a nice approach you’re taking. I start out slowly not from intent but because it takes me a bit to get going. I know you were doing something specific today, but I’m trying to keep the watch, etc. at home.
way to go, 6 miles is a long way to hold half marathon pace!
Hey Kristin, credit goes to you for giving me the idea to stop doing habitual progression runs. You’re a fast chick so when you said the other day that you never negative split anything, it made me realize that maybe I’m not winning any points with my current method. Not that I want to go positive every run either
but I’ll definitely be mixing it up more.
I like your approach. It reminds me of that Emil Zatopek quote: “Why should I practice running slow? I already know how to run slow. I want to learn to run fast.”
PS. Dragonboats zing me squarely in the funnybone every time I see or think about them. No idea why they give me the giggles.
Ah, great pulling out of the Zatopek quote! Yeah, dragonboats are kinda goofy. I did it a few years ago (it’s a yearly event). Was nice to be in the river instead of looking at it for a change.
Nice run Flo, 6@HM (or near as dammit) is a good fitness benchmark. Context matters of course. What did the previous 2-3 days look like?
The days before were pretty good 11, 9, 11, 6. Then today I did a zippy 14. I think I like this!
That was a good run Flo. Keep keeping it “legal”, or you might get JG offside