Wednesday 060910

Interviews with WS top contenders.

Nick’s “guide” to ultra prep.

AM – tough to get up this morning.  Any case, 2 mile warm up over to BHS, and the 3 x (600-400-200) with a very slow 200 jog between each rep, and 400 jog between each set.  Tried to take these in order of imagining 5k pace, mile pace and 800 pace.  Feels the same as it did ten years ago, but my watch must run faster these days.  1.25 mile cool down.  7 miles total.  (2:01, 78, 37; 2:00, 78, 37; 1:59, 77, 36).

This workout probably be a bit longer (both in terms of distance  -probably closer to 3 miles for me in total “speed” - and time – probably at least 18 minutes versus the 12 here), but I am just working into these (after not doing more than 2k of stuff here through the spring).

I have been asked why I do these sorts of workouts – flat, short – when the events I prepare for are typically uphill and longer.  First, this sort of activity represents a very small percentage of my training (less than 3 percent in terms of typical mileage, probably even less than that in terms of time).  Second, I feel some need to tap this sort of work, because it is the aspect of my running that has degraded the most over the last five years – and hence potentially represents an area that I could gain the most improvement from.

That aside, I have wondered if I have subconsciously grown scared to run fast.  Well, less so about running fast, and more scared of running while hurting.  I know that sounds weird.  In reading various literature over the last couple years about the brain acting as a damper to protect ourselves, I have wondered if it is adverse to running faster, as that represents potential damage it does not want to deal with.

Or I could just be slower.

Evening … I forgot how much I love running at this time.  It is cooler, the sun has set so there are beautiful vistas of the mountains to the west.  The trade off is that while my legs are awake, I am usually tired from a full day.  In any case, I got out on the Lake Link trail and as it was too dark to read the watch, I decided to play a HR game.  The game was to keep my HR as constant as possible – and at an easy level (sub 150), with the challenge being that I was doing this blind and that this course is very varied (rolling quite a bit).  I did “okay.”  I averaged 147, but with a max of 154 (on an 6.5 % grade uphill).  Given the nature of the route, the pace was ALL over the place to keep things dialed in (low sixes on the downhills to high tens on the uphills).  Sorta fun.  5 miles.