I readily admit that pacing, and being able to 'feel' my pace, is not something I'm very good at. I've been working at it, and thought I was getting better, so I decided to test myself a bit last night. Running has been going pretty well for me lately since the week off to rest my ankle. It still gets a little sore, but the pain hasn't returned. I suspect I've got a little tendinitis going on, but feeding it ice seems to be keeping it happy. Left calf and shin are generally grumpy these days, but I'm opting to strangle them with compression sleeves and not listen to them. Something always seems to hurt, so the wheel-o-hurt seems to have settled on lower left leg right now. All part of the joy of running/aging.
I had to do a late-night run yesterday, so I decided to try a tempo run for the 5 miles on the plan. Planned to go-out with a moderate pace for the first mile, then do 3 miles at around marathon target pace (shooting for 8:00/mile), then slow things down again for the last mile. Since it was dark anyhow, I decided not to look at my Garmin throughout, and just listen for the beeps at the mile-marks to know when to hit the gas or the brakes.
Net result - I still suck at pacing. It ended up being a really good run, but way faster than it should have been. I'm still anticipating ankle pain every time I step with my left leg, so I think that is screwing with my ability to just 'feel the run', but other than that I don't really have an excuse. Pacing for the run:
Mile 1 - 9:04
Mile 2 - 7:46
Mile 3 - 7:32
Mile 4 - 7:20
Mile 5 - 8:23
Too fast starting with the first step of mile 2. Oh well - I do pretty well with this if I'm checking the Garmin, and I have no problem looking at that thing every 10 seconds. If I paid all that money for it I want to get everything out of it I can. I'm a slave to the machines.
9 mile long run on the plan for Sunday, and I'm returning to the path where my knee unraveled before my last marathon. Not typically superstitious, but I'm a little nervous about running there again. Hopefully uneventful.
Thanks to my desire to follow along with Emz and her 100-mile treadmill ownage, I have been officially sucked into the world of Twitter. For someone that spends most of his life working on computers for a networking company, I'm pretty slow on the uptake for social media. Have to admit Twitter is pretty amusing, and seems to have more momentum than Facebook these days. Also nice to be limited to only a couple sentences worth of characters if I just don't have anything blogworthy to say. If you want to find me in Twitterland I'm @EvolvingThruRun. If I say anything embarrassing, or more embarrassing than usual, it's all Emz's fault.
Best of luck to all running races this weekend, especially the folks getting after it in Fargo. Mind over Miles.
I had to do a late-night run yesterday, so I decided to try a tempo run for the 5 miles on the plan. Planned to go-out with a moderate pace for the first mile, then do 3 miles at around marathon target pace (shooting for 8:00/mile), then slow things down again for the last mile. Since it was dark anyhow, I decided not to look at my Garmin throughout, and just listen for the beeps at the mile-marks to know when to hit the gas or the brakes.
Net result - I still suck at pacing. It ended up being a really good run, but way faster than it should have been. I'm still anticipating ankle pain every time I step with my left leg, so I think that is screwing with my ability to just 'feel the run', but other than that I don't really have an excuse. Pacing for the run:
Mile 1 - 9:04
Mile 2 - 7:46
Mile 3 - 7:32
Mile 4 - 7:20
Mile 5 - 8:23
Too fast starting with the first step of mile 2. Oh well - I do pretty well with this if I'm checking the Garmin, and I have no problem looking at that thing every 10 seconds. If I paid all that money for it I want to get everything out of it I can. I'm a slave to the machines.
9 mile long run on the plan for Sunday, and I'm returning to the path where my knee unraveled before my last marathon. Not typically superstitious, but I'm a little nervous about running there again. Hopefully uneventful.
Best of luck to all running races this weekend, especially the folks getting after it in Fargo. Mind over Miles.
