Skipping in Hell

TRAINING REPORT:

I mentioned last week (or was it two weeks ago now?) that I was going to re-revise my pacing/training strategy. I started off too ambitious in search of a 3:20 finish time and it became clear that my current level of fitness was not such that I could train at that pace.  I fell back to the pacings I used for my half marathon training which put me on around a 3:35 pace.  Finding those paces pleasantly easy, I've stepped up the training paces in accordance with my revised 3:30 goal.

Monday was a gym day and we did a pretty active full body workout -- lots of plyometrics and balance drills.  I will publicly state for the record that I *hate* jump-lunges (AKA Scissor lunges) where you alternate lunges by explosively jumping from the down position, switching leading & trailing legs in the air, and landing into another lunge.  It's like skipping in Hell.

2011-APR-11 Diet Log

Tuesday was my first interval run in a few weeks and my first run on the revised plan.  The prescribed run was 3 sets of 2 x 1200m @ 9.2 MPH (or about a 6:18 per mile pace).  One of the seasonal challenges in Vermont is knowing at what point to switch the control on the HVAC from "HEAT" to "COOL."  I think the gym hadn't made that switch yet because it was *HOT.*  I did a 400m easy run on the treadmill and had a sweat going.  Running the intervals felt pretty decent, very reminiscent of the feeling I had during my half-marathon training.  The pace & distance was challenging, at times uncomfortable, but ultimately doable.

Throughout my training I've tried to balance listening to my body with pushing my body.  Getting the balance right is crucial.  Push too far and my recovery will carry into my next run and lead to a cascade of failure where I ultimately have to take multiple runs off to recover.  Push too little and I won't maximize my training and I won't be in the shape I need to be in to run the race I want to run.  For my interval session today, I chose to blow off the last 2x1200 and spend some extra time stretching and cooling down before heading back to the office.  This run was my first shot at a challenging pace in nearly a month and I was still sore from those damn scissor lunges.

I could have pushed through 2 more (and maybe I should have!), but I still have a 10 mile run at race-pace on Thursday and a 15 mile long run on the weekend and I really want to try to see if I can hit the pace for both runs.  In order to do that, I need to be healthy enough to run and that little voice in my head didn't like where that last set of 2x1200s might lead.  I think it probably led to Hell.  ...and there would probably be skipping.  ($#^$&% scissor lunges).

2011-APR-12 Diet Log
2011-APR-12 Nike+ Run Graph