Hi friends, welcome back! It’s been a couple of days since my last entry so I have two runs to talk about today. I did a 5 miler on Tuesday with a 3 mile tempo run in the middle and an 8 mile steady state run today. Let’s get it it them. On Tuesday I had a prescribed 5 mile run for my training so I set out for the first mile at an 8:20ish pace which is a pretty comfortable pace for me for a “shorter” distance. At this point in my training anything under 10 is a shorter distance. The weather was perfect and I was feeling really good so I decided to push the pace and kicked the next 3 miles down to 7:40, 7:20, 7:20. Low to mid 7 minute pace is tough for me and is on the borderline of anaerobic, which is good. This type of running is often referred to as threshold running. When you are running near your aerobic threshold it can help you increase your VO2 max, and increasing your VO2 max helps you get faster. Finally I finished the last mile back around an 8:20 pace and cooled d...
Hi friends, welcome back! Today was a great running day. I’m sure you already read my last few posts and therefore you know that I’ve been riding the struggle bus for a few days. Honestly, the struggles have been building for a couple of weeks now. Because of that, I decided to take a few days off to get some rest and to let my body heal from all the miles I’ve been putting in it. I’m so happy that I did, because it resulted in a great run. That got me thinking, what does the anatomy of a good run look like? To be honest, I don’t know. But today it was a combination of rest, cool sunny weather, and not having a plan that helped me find my stride. My prescribed run for the day was 20 miles. However, after taking off 3 days to let lingering knee and hip discomfort heal I set out for my run not knowing if I was going to run 2 miles or 12. I ran 15 miles. 15 wonderful, comfortable, fast miles at an 8:23 pace. In fact I felt so good that I almost kept going, but didn’t have any water o...