How?
>> Sunday, October 31, 2010
In the workouts that Coach Jen gave me, she often had pretty specific time goal for me to hit. It was never a "total run" goal, but they were always "mile-by-mile" goals. And I got good at hitting them on the head. When I got home from those workouts, I'd tell Pharmie my times and how they corresponded with Jen's goals for me, and we were both shocked.
How could I do this so consistently?
I did it again on Tuesday during a long run. (If you're a local, you remember that Tuesday was the stormy / windy day with 60+ mph gusts - running in that was an ad-ven-ture!!) I told myself this: "2 WU miles, 1 mile at 6:30, then build: 6:15, 6:00, 5:45 (or at least sub 6). Then a 2-3 mile CD."
Here's what I actually did: 2 WU miles (6:58, 7:29), then 6:30, 6:13 (swirling wind at my back), 6:02 (running more into wind), and 5:43 (which felt smooth and ALMOST easy). Then 3 CD miles. (I spent my first CD mile throwing big downed branches off the trail along the Mississippi - good way to cool down!)
So the first "building" mile was right on, the next was 2 seconds fast (but with some wind at my back), the next was 2 seconds slow (but into the wind), and the final mile was 2 seconds fast. So overall for those 4 hard miles, I was 2 seconds faster than I had hoped. (And I only had mile splits during that run - I had no way of checking my splits every 1/4 or 1/2 mile.)
Here's my Tip of the Week: If you don't give yourself specific time goals DURING a run, I think you should try it sometime. Don't just try it once - you've got to get used to doing it. Try it for a month or 2 to get used to running at a certain pace that you dictate for yourself ahead of time. AND HERE'S WHY: At some point, you can say, "I learned that can do 8:00 and 7:50 for the last 2 miles of my tempo run. Next time, I'll shoot for my last 2 miles to be 7:50 and sub 7:45."
And guess what? You'll be able to get those numbers.
You'll be able to run FASTER than you ever have before. And it's because you've told your body to run a X:XX mile and it knows what that feels like. And then you told it to run a FASTER mile, and it knows how to do that.
But you have to spend some time TEACHING yourself what it feels like to run a X:XX mile. In the middle of a run, tell yourself to run 3 miles with the first at X:XX, the next one 10 seconds faster, and the final one at least 10 seconds faster yet.
And then watch your running improve over the next few months!
Happy Halloween everyone!!
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