- Mackey wins Red Hot 50K! Looks like a tough battle over Parr.
- Podcasts ...
- Good one over at The Competitors with Mark Allen and Brandt Secunda
- Interesting one regarding a marathoner turned tri guy at Endurance Corner
- Steve Runner does a podcast that covers a Lydiard lecture.
- I might get this kit for the Pumpkin ... although it is a bit pricey.
- TZ and I went to the Avs game last night (they lost), and then slept in as the kids were at a sleep over. I missed the work out with Lucho but wanted to try to do a similar session on my own. JZ and I spent the afternoon over at the Rec Center pool however, and a good deal of time in the hot tub. As I suited up, my legs felt pretty zapped, and I debated if I should just take a nap instead. I figured I just jog to the track and see how I felt. Besides, I was a bit motivated by Dave's win, and a good race report via Justin
- So I got to the track and my legs felt like they had been in the hot tub most of the afternoon - meaning mushy. I figured I just do the 200 striders and see how I felt. I decided not to push them but just float them at "5k" pace. Legs felt lousy as they came in at 39, 40, 39, and 37. I figured I give one of the miles a shot and see how I felt.
- When I got into the mile, I decided to just run on feel - and not look at the watch. The feel I was going for was 10k-half marathon pace. The legs feel pretty weak but my lungs, and the effort up stairs was easy. I felt like it was about six minute pace, but I was not going to be surprised if it was 6:30. I was surprised to see 5:35. Okay. I figured I give the next one a shot and see how I felt. Quarter jog easy and then 5:34. Well, if I did 2, I had to do at least 3. These were coming pretty easy, but right at that range where I feel comfortable. 15 seconds faster per mile right now would have been a different challenge. 5:35. Still felt the same - slushy in the legs but fine upstairs. What the hell, go for four. 5:28, squeezed it a gear up in the last quarter for fun.
- Happy with the workout. It was pretty easy - not a fence grabber, hold my knees, puke my brains out. Nope - this was I am by myself in 20 degree temps on a track when the sun is setting ... just rolled comfortably. Given the conditions, I am happy with how it went.
- 10 miles, 72 minutes.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Saturday 021409 10 miles
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That's a solid workout. It blows my mind how you haven't ran faster in your last few 5Ks (Frozen Foot's course goof aside) given some of these sub 6 runs. Seems that you could roll a sub 17 with no problem.
ReplyDeleteNice 5 miler today Mr. Mock. Did you discover who the unknown was?
ReplyDeleteI am not surprised actually at this 5K thing. I have only done 3, with the last 2 on that CU course. Had the last one been on say the typical BRR course, I think I would have seen progress. I am pretty close, but ...
... 5:35s are still only a 17:15 or so.
... I have gone out too fast in every one of these 5k races. Maybe not by a lot, but enough to jack the pacing in mile 2 and 3.
... I don't typically race too much higher than I workout.
Of course, I was thinking yesterday - dang, JM is doing faster than this in a 5 mile race without rest!
GZ - I think it is great that you recognize that your races aren't typically much faster/better than your workouts. That is the case for a lot of runners but recognizing/admitting it is certainly going to help you address it. I think a lot of runners still have the old New Balance "No Pain, No Gain" mentality on workouts and think harder or faster is always better but rather you should always go into a workout with certainty about what you are trying to accomplish and stick to that plan; also, realize that depending on what you are trying to accomplish either the pace or the rest interval is important, and focus on that aspect of the workout. In the end, you always want to strive to be the guy who races better than his workouts.
ReplyDeleteI think the downside to the easy access to so many runners' training logs these days is the tendency to always think you need to do more and faster yourself to keep up with the other guys, but you just have no way of knowing the relative effort of runner X doing 5:30 mile repeats.
Also, and I know this sounds bad, but I always discount about 10% off anything I see/read about another runners' workouts!
Good luck and the faster times will come....
- pauld
Charlie Hidalgo. Never heard of him. Brice seemed to think he ran at UNC, but I couldn't find anything online for him.
ReplyDeleteIt just seems unlikely to me that you can't pick it up another 10 seconds/mile in a race. The competition, race atmosphere, adrenaline, I would think that would get you there. On the other hand, I guess you could argue that I'm sandbagging on my track workouts though.
I guess I know there are some folks that get 10 sec/mile in a race. That is great. I have just not been one of them. When I was running 16:10ish up here (or 5:12ish pace), I'd end up doing my halves in an average of 2:30 with about a minute rest. I thought based on an Owen Anderson article I read, the pace in the 800s would be 4-5 seconds faster per 800 than what I could sustain in a 5k per mile. It was about right.
ReplyDeleteIf anything, I might be guilty of leaving some of my better performances on the workout / track. There have definitely been some races where I know I have left it all out there, but I probably have done that in more workouts more than I should have.
Paul - great comments ... particularly on rest, recovery, in a workout, etc. I do read what other folks do, and let it serve as a gentle motivation to me. I am not all "fire in the belly" like some about beating someone ... that is just another extrinsic motivation that I choose to leverage at times. Maybe they did the workout, maybe they didn't or maybe they did but they were yakking on their third repeat. It doesn't really matter .... at the end of all this, we are fighting ourselves, competing against ourselves.