A Nice Morning
It felt like marathon training started again today, as it was my first workout that I really didn't want to do. To the point where I was already looking for excuses last night not to do it.
But Friday's race was a wakeup call. I need to up the intensity in my training. So its time to go out harder again on Tuesdays and Thursdays. For this morning that meant that I wanted to repeat Sunday's Hog Island Road (ass-end of airport) loop, but finish it in under two hours. This meant taking 4 and a half minutes off of Sundays time for the 15.5 mile course. I planned to get the cuts by taking the 5 or so Hog Island miles hard and then taking the last 5 Tinicum miles hard.
I went to bed last night at a reasonable hour and thus was able to get myself out of bed this morning at 5, a half hour earlier than usual. I really didn't want to run this, but embraced the resistance, holding it front and center and looking it in the eye and saying to myself this is what marathon training looks like.
I made it out the door and the run wasn't bad. I pretty much build a slow start into my runs now, and the good thing about my goal for today was that I not only set a faster time, but also the places where I would cut those seconds. This let me take the early miles as easy as I wanted. I only started to pick the pace up when I got on to Island Ave/Hog Island Rd. (maybe 4 miles out). Gmapping this stretch (here) and I see it comes out to 4.5 miles. Flat and pretty straight, its a good stretch for a time trial but other than the airport infrastructure its not very interesting. Conducive to focus on pace, lamppost by lamppost. Time for this stretch was 33:12 - about a 7:20 pace. Obviously there is a ways I can still take it down but the point for today was to get back in the mindframe of pushing myself out of my comfort zone.
The next stretch where I pushed it was the last 5 miles through Tinicum. From the Lindbergh Ave entrance it is exactly 5 miles, and I now had a time to shoot for. Picking up the pace seemed easier here, as witnessed by my splits for the 2 mile and 3 mile sections that I keep track of - 13:46 & 20:43 respectively. This combined was only a little slower than what I ran these 5 yesterday. Total time for the 15.5 was 1:55:53.
This is almost a perfect start. A solid run and a noticeable improvement, but I still left myself all kinds of room for further improvement as I prep for Twin Cities. I'm a bit uneasy about the distance, as this loop is about 2 miles longer than the BN loop that this replaces. But I want sub 2:35 this time around and this is one way to get there. I don't know if I'll sustain this on Tuesdays. We'll see. But I like how I'm thinking this morning.
Came back to a breakfast that couldn't be beat. Its been a nice morning. Now off to work.
But Friday's race was a wakeup call. I need to up the intensity in my training. So its time to go out harder again on Tuesdays and Thursdays. For this morning that meant that I wanted to repeat Sunday's Hog Island Road (ass-end of airport) loop, but finish it in under two hours. This meant taking 4 and a half minutes off of Sundays time for the 15.5 mile course. I planned to get the cuts by taking the 5 or so Hog Island miles hard and then taking the last 5 Tinicum miles hard.
I went to bed last night at a reasonable hour and thus was able to get myself out of bed this morning at 5, a half hour earlier than usual. I really didn't want to run this, but embraced the resistance, holding it front and center and looking it in the eye and saying to myself this is what marathon training looks like.
I made it out the door and the run wasn't bad. I pretty much build a slow start into my runs now, and the good thing about my goal for today was that I not only set a faster time, but also the places where I would cut those seconds. This let me take the early miles as easy as I wanted. I only started to pick the pace up when I got on to Island Ave/Hog Island Rd. (maybe 4 miles out). Gmapping this stretch (here) and I see it comes out to 4.5 miles. Flat and pretty straight, its a good stretch for a time trial but other than the airport infrastructure its not very interesting. Conducive to focus on pace, lamppost by lamppost. Time for this stretch was 33:12 - about a 7:20 pace. Obviously there is a ways I can still take it down but the point for today was to get back in the mindframe of pushing myself out of my comfort zone.
The next stretch where I pushed it was the last 5 miles through Tinicum. From the Lindbergh Ave entrance it is exactly 5 miles, and I now had a time to shoot for. Picking up the pace seemed easier here, as witnessed by my splits for the 2 mile and 3 mile sections that I keep track of - 13:46 & 20:43 respectively. This combined was only a little slower than what I ran these 5 yesterday. Total time for the 15.5 was 1:55:53.
This is almost a perfect start. A solid run and a noticeable improvement, but I still left myself all kinds of room for further improvement as I prep for Twin Cities. I'm a bit uneasy about the distance, as this loop is about 2 miles longer than the BN loop that this replaces. But I want sub 2:35 this time around and this is one way to get there. I don't know if I'll sustain this on Tuesdays. We'll see. But I like how I'm thinking this morning.
Came back to a breakfast that couldn't be beat. Its been a nice morning. Now off to work.
posted by seebo | 9:19 AM
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