This is no surprise to anyone who knows me, and my mom has a number of pithy little comments she could insert at this point, but specifically, as this is a blog about running, I'm talking about my issues with regards to pace. I know some people, like my hubby, can go out and say, "I'm going to run 5 miles at 9:25" and then do it, no Garmin or external monitoring required. I, unfortunately, am not one of those people. Even with some nifty technology at my disposal, I have issues.
Because I'm trying to increase my speed from back of the pack to at least middle of the pack, I've been doing speed work once a week. Generally, this has been good for my ego as the speeds and distances have been challenging, yet doable. And Haakan's been coming with me, which has been fun (it would be *really* fun, were it not for the actual running, but hey, you can't have everything), and has also helped me to stay on pace, since like I said, he's got an internal speedometer. This Wednesday, I had to go alone.
"Go forth and do three 1 mile repeats at 8:55," said my coach, aka Haakan. We didn't want to leave the kids at home with his parents, since we were afraid the baby would wake up, so he stayed behind and sent me out alone.
8:55 would have been a very doable pace. Challenging, yet not impossibly so. 8:45, which is where I ended up for the first two miles, proved to be a bit TOO challenging, since I was only able to squeeze out .5 miles for my final one.
So here's where my issues come in. I set out with the best of intentions, with my Garmin all charged and set up properly, my shoes laced up right, looking all cute and runnerly (which always helps), and yet I just couldn't get the pace under control. As soon as I'd take my eyes off the Garmin, the pace would creep up, and before I knew it, I was zooming along WAY too fast, and I'd have to fight to slow down. I have no idea why I couldn't keep it under control, and I paid the price for it. Instead of three 1 mile repeats, I ended up doing two 1 mile repeats and one half mile. I spent part of the second mile repeat feeling like I was going to pee, so I had to make a pit stop at the porta potties (thank goodness for them!), and I think trying not to pee screwed me up even more. I think I need to learn how to internalize the pace more. It's like I think it should be harder to go at that pace than it is, like I think it should feel like a sprint or something. So I go too fast, I'm exhausted at the end, and the thought of doing another mile just feels like torture, so I dread it, and then I don't want to do it. I spent my cool down between the second and half-completed third repeats trying to psych myself up, saying "I'm doing this because I *can*, not because I *have to*." It wasn't entirely successful.
Next post, I share my fabulous fashion finds when I went a little crazy at Dunham's. I'm still waiting on my snazzy new shorts from Lululemon, but I've got a few other snazzy things to tide me over. I almost look like a real runner, so now I've just got to stop doing stupid things, like having no control over my speed!
3 comments:
How long have you been running, Gen? I only ask because I *used* to have an internal speedometer. But it didn't show up until about 5 or 6 years into running regularly. I can't "auto-calculate" pace like I used to either because I don't run as frequently. So, I think the two keys are: 1. years experience and 2. running regularly.
Em, I've only been running since like March of 2008, so not that long. I think a lot of my issues just have to do with being fairly new to running still.
Mile repeats are definitely not meant to be sprints. You shouldn't be too tired after the first one or two. I know a lot of people don't care much for mile repeats, but I find them incredibly useful for confidence building. I do mile repeats at my target 10K pace, and it helps me believe in my ability to run the full distance at the same pace.
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