April 7th, 2009
A windy day for my river route: 48 degrees, 19mph, gusts to 29. I would have rearranged my schedule to do this one tomorrow, but it’s going to be almost as windy, and by doing it today I’ll still have my 2 easys before Friday’s tempo. Last week I only had one day between speed and tempo and I think I prefer a little more padding.
2.25 warmup, 4 x 1mile @ 10k pace w/ 3min. recoveries, then 4.5 miles home. I ran farther out to try and get away from the wind, but it didn’t work (thus the long cooldown).
The mile repeats went 6:57, 6:53, 6:56, 7:00
Avg. 6:56/mi. and Avg. 85% HRR, Max 89%.
Total run: 11.55 miles, avg pace 8:03.
No complaints from me today.
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Ugh, we had the same weather here in Ohio yesterday too. It sounds like you concord it thought, great job.
For some unknown reason I decided to push my little 5k run a bit harder to see what I was made of. 20 mph winds coming at me were tough.
Anyway, I am having a bit of a debate with the hubby I thought you could help out with. He truly thinks that when race time comes in 4 weeks I am going to surprise myself with this crazy time I never thought I could do. I have been running regularly at around 10 minute pace (since December when I got the clear from the doc to run) on my training runs, and ya I am not spent when I am done, but it doesn’t feel great either.
I just did a 5k training run yesterday where I picked it up more and averaged 9:30′s, but he still thinks I am setting my bar to low and I will go faster, um not buying it.
Anyway, your blog starts after you had been running for almost a year so I was curious about the improvement you saw in your self in the beginning.
Thanks again and good luck with the rest of the training for the big race.
Stevi, remind me what your goal race is, I know your Hubby has the Full in May but not sure what your own goal race is. If it is a 5K, yep, you will go faster in the race than you do in training due to adrenaline and the race environment (having all those fellow racers around you). Since you’re doing SmartCoach, use those tempos and interval sessions to see your comfort level. When you do intervals, you should feel you could squeak out another one (they shouldn’t kill you). That said, I think SmartCoach loves mile-long intervals which do border on the miserable if you’re not experienced.
One thing though, your regular training runs should be comfortable and easy, only the hard stuff should be hard. I know it seems counter-intuitive, but to build your aerobic fitness you need to stay in the easy zone. You probably know that, but I want to make sure you aren’t just concentrating on “5k training runs” (which sound like time trials to me but probably only because it’s race distance).
Thanks, yep I am doing mostly 5ks this summer and will focus on longer stuff later.
I would like to get in a comfy 8:30 pace before getting into the longer distances. Since I have been as this for just a short time I was just hoping for something around 30 min or under (seems to be when the mass group of most women come across the finish line).
Now with all this time talk I started to wonder if I was really pushing myself to the right level. I know I can do mile intervals well under 8:30, but just not sure if race day conditions would be enough to give me magic wings to hit that pace for 3.1 miles (I’ll get there and then some, but I don’t think I have put enough work into get there yet.)
Anywho, I just need to wait and see on race day. I REFUSE to walk any of the race, so I may just start at 9:30ish and try to push harder after mile one.
Once I get to twenty miles per week I will start focusing more on speedwork ( I should be at that level right after my first 5k of the season).
Grazie!
Ah, didn’t realize you were under 20mpw right now, good call on starting speed after that. Your race plan sounds very smart since you don’t have anything to compare it to, so best not to die out there. :-) After this race you’ll be able to judge better for your next one.
Flo – Nice set of sixes there. I assume the last one was into the wind and therefore count a s six also
Stevi – Your Hubbie sounds like a great supporter to have, and he might turn out to be right. Speed should always be quite a small percentage of total mileage. Strides seem safe though, since they only last a few seconds. Do as many of those as you want. You could also tack on a fast finish to some of your runs.
I’m always amazed at the race-day effect that Flo mentioned. You probably won’t have an accurate target pace until you’ve done a race or two to find out what your current 5K race pace is. Then you can plug it into the McMillan calculator (There’s a link on the right) to see what your training paces should be.
Don’t worry too much about other people’s speed. One of the pleasures of being a newbie is the fast rate of improvement. Those folks that pull away from you in that first race will be feeling your hot breath on their necks soon enough!
Hi Flo! Not trying to highjack your blog but I have to share!!! I did mile repeats on the track yesterday in the wind also. 1/2 of the track was a headwind and the other was mostly a tailwind. But that is not the good part. One, I actually got outdoors!!! Two, my mile repeats were pretty good 9:58 and 9:31 (still working on the even pacing thing!) Thanks so much for the inspiration. Visions of you are what actually got me out my door to do this so thanks!!!!! Now go kick some butt on that 1/2!!!!
Wind is like hills. You don’t get back on the downwind as much as you spend on the upwind segment. So a good time in the wind deserves an extra pat on the back.
Aw, thanks for the pat, Jim.
Christi, yay on you, girl! Maybe split the difference next time and go for 9:44s.