Dress Rehearsal
"I wanted a mission, and for my sins, [I] gave me one." (paraphrase from Apocalypse Now)
I wanted one last hard workout before my taper. I settled on a run around the Drives, with seven miles at half-marathon pace (5:45-5:50). Give myself a taste of what Sunday might feel like. The course is flat and the weather seemed cool when I first got out there but my cotton t-shirt was quickly drenched in sweat from the humidity. For once I wanted this, as it should be pretty close to conditions in VB. After cycling out to Chestnut and 33rd (cut out some of the junk miles), I warmed up to the 7 mile hash on MLK and let it rip. First mile was 5:50, which would prove to be my fastest mile. Mile 2 was in 5:53, and then it was 5:51; 5:54; 5:54; 5:59. One mile to go, and when the half mile split was 3:03 I called off the hunt. No sense in continuing to flog my legs if they clearly had enough.
Not as fast as I wanted, and clearly I'm not as recovered as I thought from the weekend. But when I don't get what I want I get some lessons learned. Specifically:
1) I need to go out conservative on Sunday. I'm not good at this but take it at a 6 flat pace through the first couple of miles and then make it an 11 mile race. This also gives me time to gauge the conditions and how hard I can realistically go.
2) Listen to my legs. In Sunday's race at the one mile mark my legs felt very strong, and I knew it would be okay to pull away from the group that I was working with. Today I knew at the one mile mark that I'd be hard pressed to keep up even the 5:50 pace, but I decided to try anyway and sure enough I slowed down. That's okay for a workout, if I feel that way on Sunday I need to take it down a notch.
3) Accommodate, don't fight the weather. If I do this I'll be reeling in folks till the cows come home at the end.
4) I'm gonna do well on Sunday.
For the rest of the week my running will just amount to farting around. One less thing I have to stress over. September will be a tough month, as I have some major deadlines at work and I'll be moving out of the house. But a friend responded rather presciently to this: "The deadlines in September could only be a piece of cake after running a 4:55 mile..."
Gotta remember that, gotta hang on to that.
11 miles in 75:11.
I wanted one last hard workout before my taper. I settled on a run around the Drives, with seven miles at half-marathon pace (5:45-5:50). Give myself a taste of what Sunday might feel like. The course is flat and the weather seemed cool when I first got out there but my cotton t-shirt was quickly drenched in sweat from the humidity. For once I wanted this, as it should be pretty close to conditions in VB. After cycling out to Chestnut and 33rd (cut out some of the junk miles), I warmed up to the 7 mile hash on MLK and let it rip. First mile was 5:50, which would prove to be my fastest mile. Mile 2 was in 5:53, and then it was 5:51; 5:54; 5:54; 5:59. One mile to go, and when the half mile split was 3:03 I called off the hunt. No sense in continuing to flog my legs if they clearly had enough.
Not as fast as I wanted, and clearly I'm not as recovered as I thought from the weekend. But when I don't get what I want I get some lessons learned. Specifically:
1) I need to go out conservative on Sunday. I'm not good at this but take it at a 6 flat pace through the first couple of miles and then make it an 11 mile race. This also gives me time to gauge the conditions and how hard I can realistically go.
2) Listen to my legs. In Sunday's race at the one mile mark my legs felt very strong, and I knew it would be okay to pull away from the group that I was working with. Today I knew at the one mile mark that I'd be hard pressed to keep up even the 5:50 pace, but I decided to try anyway and sure enough I slowed down. That's okay for a workout, if I feel that way on Sunday I need to take it down a notch.
3) Accommodate, don't fight the weather. If I do this I'll be reeling in folks till the cows come home at the end.
4) I'm gonna do well on Sunday.
For the rest of the week my running will just amount to farting around. One less thing I have to stress over. September will be a tough month, as I have some major deadlines at work and I'll be moving out of the house. But a friend responded rather presciently to this: "The deadlines in September could only be a piece of cake after running a 4:55 mile..."
Gotta remember that, gotta hang on to that.
11 miles in 75:11.
posted by seebo | 8:46 AM
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