Thursday, September 3, 2009

Paces

I was sitting in a meeting after school today, trying my best to concentrate on what was being said, but all I could hear were the minutes until my escape ticking in my head. I would nod and smile, take a few notes as if I was paying attention, but in my head I was doing mental math. If I run at x pace then it will take me y amount of time to run 4 miles. If this meeting takes w amount of minutes, and it takes me z minutes to drive home, will I have time to run before I take my son to soccer practice ? I mentally willed the thermometer to read below 90. So when the meeting ended promptly at 3:45 I raced to the parking lot, checked the weather on my trusty Iphone and was happily suprised when I saw 88 degrees pop up on the little screen. It was even a little overcast and breezy when I made it out the door and started my first mile.
I usually run in the morning before work, but today was the Captain's day to get up early for a workout. ( the Captain being my husband.) I knew I could either take a rest day today and run early tomorrow or if time and weather permitted run between work and soccer and have my glorious rest day tomorrow. So I was excited to run today, knowing it meant a little extra time in the sack in the a.m., and planned to reward myself with a nice glass of red wine and a soak in the tub this evening. Afternoon runs usually seem to be quicker for me. I think it must be extra energy from having breakfast and lunch prior to the run, however I am very careful not to eat between lunch and my run as it can be pretty uncomfortable to run with much on my stomach. I raced out of the driveway at breakneck speed, and ran my first mile at race pace & then slowed down to my comfortable short run training pace for the next three miles. Yes, there are different paces for different runs. Race pace is my fastest pace, which I usually reserve for actual races, unless my training plan calls for a run at race pace. Short run pace is a tad slower, sorta long run pace is in the middle and long run pace for me is about as slow as it gets. The reason being that I don't want to wear myself out with overtraining working as hard as I can every training run. That will lead to injury and fatigue. Neither are any fun. The long run is simply to train my body for endurance and it raises my risk of injury to run it too quickly. The short runs are faster for me because by now I've learned how much energy it take run each distance and know that I can finish these runs quickly, safely and enjoyably. I really look forward to each type of run and each type of pace, and really don't get too bogged down in how fast any of them are. While I usually have a goal in mind when I head out, there are days when I easily achieve it, days when I struggle, and days where my body signals me I need to take it a little easier. Today was a good fast fun day. I'm so glad that meeting ended on time.

1 comment:

  1. Ladies and Gentlemen - this is the Captain speaking. If you look over on your left side you'll see where someone has exhaled some Powerbar Gel Thingys while trying to get to speed on the bike. And on your right you'll notice a half full vanilla gel wrapper left there to choke the life out of some unsuspecting bird.

    23 days until 13.1 miles of race pace.

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