I totally started to write a blog post yesterday and failed to complete it...So let's try this again. Sunday (yesterday) was a rest day, which was fairly uneventful and actually quite restful and nice. I spent a lot of last night freaking out on Skype to Henry just with pre-race jitters and he did a great job of calming me down about everything. I'm not building anymore fitness this last week, it's just a recovery/maintenance week and my focus should be on my sanity more than anything else. Everything sort of goes out the window on race day: I'll be in a completely different place in terms of mindset and there's no way for me to be prepared for racing other than by racing frequently. We decided that it would be best if I took my eyes off of goal times and paces during the race and focused instead on just running the best race I can by feel. So I'll wear my watch in order to get data for later on, but I'm going to tape a piece of paper over top of it or something so I'm not tempted to look for splits. It will take a bit of pressure of in terms of hitting certain paces and it'll prevent me from psyching myself out in case I think I'm going too fast or too slow or whatever. I have a pretty good understanding of my body, this distance, and my pacing, so I really need to trust that come race day.
This morning I took a long run, basically fasted. I woke up, drank a bottle of water and downed a Clif Shot, then headed out for my run. Details below:
Today's Workout: Long run (10-12 mi)
Summary: 11.27 mi, 1:50:29, 9:48 pace.
Pace splits by mile: 9:43, 9:58, 9:51, 9:54, 9:55, 9:55, 9:49, 9:50, 9:40, 9:43, 9:38, 9:27.
Hit rate: 14/16 (87.5%)
Thoughts about today: The back end (3-4 miles) were much rougher than I was expecting, and I had taken the initial 6 miles at a very relaxed effort, so it's all just a great reminder to stay in control on the way out during the race and err on the side of too easy rather than too hard. That having been said, the last couple of miles were still quick without me maxing out on the effort, which makes me confident that I'll be able to push harder than that and pull out a bigger sized negative split during the race so long as I stay relaxed during the first half.
The cadence today was fantastic. I was up above 170 consistently the first 4-5 miles and never dropped below 165 even in the later parts of the run, which is exactly what I want. I focused a lot on turnover today every time I felt myself slowing down and I think it was really important. Ideally, this is how I want to run my race on Sunday, but with a bit more edge in all my efforts. At the very least, I now know that I will be able to finish under 2:10 even when running not so seriously, so that's comforting.
I also tried not to look at my watch today, and checked only at 3 miles, 6 miles, 8 miles, and 10 miles onwards, and I still managed to hold a nice steady consistent pace, which I'm really happy with. It gives me a little bit more confidence about this whole running by feel business.
Tomorrow will be a swim only day in order to give my legs some time to recovery. Only 3 more runs left on the schedule between now and race day!
Much love,
Jess
Showing posts with label pacing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pacing. Show all posts
Monday, July 20, 2015
Saturday, July 18, 2015
Priorities
Last night and today were much needed reminders that as much as I love racing and training and I try to hold myself to high standards when it comes to these things (and by high standards I mean standards in terms of commitment and effort, not so much performance), the real priorities in my life are not racing and training. It's the summer so I don't have school commitments, but I do have a family and a lover and these people in my life are my priority. And when school starts, school will be another priority. Henry and I had a rough night in a lot of ways last night. I sort of picked a fight with him and he's been going through a rough patch and in the end I think we both needed to just spend some time together, even if it was over the internet, being there to support the other. It meant I didn't get to bed until close to 2 AM. And I had promised Coen a trip to Adventure Bay today, so I had to be mentally present for him. Henry said something that was really important to me last night about this: Being there for my family right now is worth losing 5 or 10 minutes on my race finish time. And he's right. Competing and training is a really selfish thing in a lot of ways because it is such an egocentric activity and takes a lot away from what I can do with my time/energy outside of that. It's important to remember that this isn't the most important part of my life: I've got a lot of other things to prioritize above my training and performance.
So I had actually consented myself to the fact that today was probably going to be a missed workout day, but found some time in the morning to squeeze in a very short easy run. I had a base 4-6 miler planned, but seeing as I was slightly sleep deprived and somewhat stressed and exhausted, I decided to cut myself some slack and just run an easy recovery 5k. It was a nice relaxed way to decompress in the morning before my day got started and I feel very lucky to have been able to get a run in today, however short and slow.
Today's Workout: Easy recovery 5 km.
Summary: 3.15 mi, 34:56, 11:05 pace.
Pace splits by mile: 10:55, 11:03, 11:16, 11:09.
Hit rate: 13/15 (86.7%)
On top of that, today was a fairly active day. Coen and I spent 10 AM to 1:30ish PM at Adventure Bay (climbing stairs for the water slides was pretty rough on my evidently still exhausted legs - may have to adjust training load next week to make sure I'm properly rested before the race). I came home and took a short nap in the afternoon and then spent some time playing one-on-one basketball with Coen in the evening. (He's always beating me at basketball. The scores are close, but it's sort of embarrassing seeing as I'm way taller and way older than him.) It was the right call to keep things short and easy today, glad I made the adjustments as necessary.
I had a long run (10-12 miles) planned for tomorrow, but Coen and I are being taken to a classic car show in the county during the day so I don't know if I'll have the time or energy for it. I might take the day off instead and re-adjust my training plan so I take the long run on Monday and possibly an extra rest day sometime during the week. We'll see how my body is feeling. I think being fresh for the Sunday race is the priority, so I'll do what I have to do to get there.
In other news, I've been taking a look at what I would like to go and the paces are really aggressive and intimidating. I have no baseline to compare this experience to because I wasn't tracking my training very accurately in the lead up to my first and only half marathon (the Philly Half Marathon from the Philly Marathon Weekend; 1:55:37 finish time on a fairly flat course) and I know I took the race out too fast but I also have no sense for how much faster than my usual training pace it was. My goal (ideally) is to go faster than I did in Philly, especially since the Windsor course is way flatter, but I very rarely am able to hit that kind of pace in training. Ideally, I'd like to be under 1:50, but an 8:22-8:23 average pace sounds ridiculous to me. I will stick with the plan of starting out at 9:00 pace and hopefully dropping that down as time goes on, which should at least get me to my old finish time, but we'll see how I'm feeling when I'm (hopefully) rested on race day. I also hope that the smaller scale of the event doesn't cut back too much on the intensity that I'm able to summon up. I know that the size of the crowd and the event was a huge motivator for me throughout the Philly Half, and I don't know that I'll be able to repeat that kind of performance without the energy of that kind of crowd. A lot of factors go into race results, I know that already, so I just have to be prepared to face the music when it happens I guess.
Much love,
Jess
So I had actually consented myself to the fact that today was probably going to be a missed workout day, but found some time in the morning to squeeze in a very short easy run. I had a base 4-6 miler planned, but seeing as I was slightly sleep deprived and somewhat stressed and exhausted, I decided to cut myself some slack and just run an easy recovery 5k. It was a nice relaxed way to decompress in the morning before my day got started and I feel very lucky to have been able to get a run in today, however short and slow.
Today's Workout: Easy recovery 5 km.
Summary: 3.15 mi, 34:56, 11:05 pace.
Pace splits by mile: 10:55, 11:03, 11:16, 11:09.
Hit rate: 13/15 (86.7%)
On top of that, today was a fairly active day. Coen and I spent 10 AM to 1:30ish PM at Adventure Bay (climbing stairs for the water slides was pretty rough on my evidently still exhausted legs - may have to adjust training load next week to make sure I'm properly rested before the race). I came home and took a short nap in the afternoon and then spent some time playing one-on-one basketball with Coen in the evening. (He's always beating me at basketball. The scores are close, but it's sort of embarrassing seeing as I'm way taller and way older than him.) It was the right call to keep things short and easy today, glad I made the adjustments as necessary.
I had a long run (10-12 miles) planned for tomorrow, but Coen and I are being taken to a classic car show in the county during the day so I don't know if I'll have the time or energy for it. I might take the day off instead and re-adjust my training plan so I take the long run on Monday and possibly an extra rest day sometime during the week. We'll see how my body is feeling. I think being fresh for the Sunday race is the priority, so I'll do what I have to do to get there.
In other news, I've been taking a look at what I would like to go and the paces are really aggressive and intimidating. I have no baseline to compare this experience to because I wasn't tracking my training very accurately in the lead up to my first and only half marathon (the Philly Half Marathon from the Philly Marathon Weekend; 1:55:37 finish time on a fairly flat course) and I know I took the race out too fast but I also have no sense for how much faster than my usual training pace it was. My goal (ideally) is to go faster than I did in Philly, especially since the Windsor course is way flatter, but I very rarely am able to hit that kind of pace in training. Ideally, I'd like to be under 1:50, but an 8:22-8:23 average pace sounds ridiculous to me. I will stick with the plan of starting out at 9:00 pace and hopefully dropping that down as time goes on, which should at least get me to my old finish time, but we'll see how I'm feeling when I'm (hopefully) rested on race day. I also hope that the smaller scale of the event doesn't cut back too much on the intensity that I'm able to summon up. I know that the size of the crowd and the event was a huge motivator for me throughout the Philly Half, and I don't know that I'll be able to repeat that kind of performance without the energy of that kind of crowd. A lot of factors go into race results, I know that already, so I just have to be prepared to face the music when it happens I guess.
Much love,
Jess
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