Adjusting

I adjusted my VDOT training intensities this week based on my race this weekend. I only moved up a level to 51 but it is still a bit of a jump. My easy runs are supposed to be done at 8:24 pace, with tempo runs at 6:44 (which I was pretty much doing anyway), and so on.

I ran an easy five miler on Monday after taking Sunday off to recover. It was 67 with 93% humidity that morning and to make matters worse, I slept wrong. I still ran my five in 41:51 which is actually more like 8:22 pace and due to sleeping wrong my upper back was sore all day until I did some yoga poses in my office and was able to get it to pop. I think I almost screamed when it went. That would have scared some people for sure.

I hit my splits in 8:35, 8:23, 8:20, 8:23 and 8:10. Even though I remeasured my five mile loop a few weeks ago on my bike I still think that the fifth mile is short. Maybe I'm forgetting where the hell the four mile mark is because the dead tree that was the marker has been removed and the hole where it used to be is overgrown with brush. I think I'm going to have to remeasure again when I'm on vacation just to make sure I'm not actually running 4.97 miles or something, god forbid. I get pretty obsessive when it comes to having accurately measured courses.

I was going to get up Tuesday morning to run 3x1200 on the track but didn't feel like it so I did it Tuesday night after work. I warmed up with a mile in 8:17 and a mile of strides that I didn't bother to time. It was 81 with 72% humidity and winds SSE 12 mph. It wasn't a fun practice.

I usually like practices with longer repeats of 800 to 1600 but last nights 1200 about killed me. I think part of the reason was that I ran them slightly faster than my 5k pace from three days earlier. I was supposed to run my 1200s in 4:36. I did a pretty good job of staying on that pace for all of them.

I hit my first one almost perfectly in 4:35.77. I was spot-on at 400, 600, 800 and 1000 but I kicked it in just a little to aggressively the last 200. I ran 600 meters for recovery in 3:37.96 and hit my second 1200 in 4:36.74. I hit my splits slightly behind until the 1000 where I was on pace. Staying on pace for that one hurt and I could feel my shoulders starting to tighten up. I jogged another 600 and gave myself a few seconds to catch my breath before I ran rep three. I covered my 600 plus breather in 4:01.12.

My last 1200 was an exercise in running through extreme discomfort. At this point in the practice my shoulders were wound tighter than a magnet's coil (thank you Lou Barlow for that simile), the humidity was preventing me from cooling down I and I was ready to be done. I started off my rep and was immediately two seconds slow at the 200 and stayed that way all the way to 1000 where I made myself push just to make sure I ran slightly faster than I needed to. There is still that part of me that hates to have my last rep be slower than the ones that preceded it even if it is only slower by a few tenths of a second. I hit my last rep, the fastest of the three, in 4:35.48. Upon finishing I promptly sat down on the track and didn't move again for a good five minutes before I got up and ran a cool-down mile in 8:16.

I intended to get up this morning at 0430 to do a five mile recovery run but Nathan had a bad case of angry insomnia last night and no one slept well. After picking my lovely son up from daycare I ran my five in 41:44 with splits of 8:21, 8:23, 16:49 (forgot to hit my split at three miles), and 8:11. I'm pretty sure that mile four is long and mile five is short because of mile 4 being long. I didn't check the Weather Channel before I left but I'm pretty sure it was in the high 70s with upwards of 70% humidity and a bit of a WSW wind blowing around 5-7 mph. Just guessing though.

Upon further reflection of my race Saturday I have determined that I crashed hard on mile three because I hadn't run my own race the previous two miles. I was more worried about staying in contact with Tim and Joy and abandoned my race plan. I think that if I had been five seconds slower at the mile mark and had hit the two mile in a tick or two over 12:20 I would have been in good position to stay closer to my aforementioned competitors. A ten second improvement isn't anything to shake a stick at, but I still think I was capable of running much faster.

Tomorrow is a rest day, Friday will be an easy five again and Saturday will be a ten miler.