I was supposed to do a temp run this morning, but I hate tempo runs and it was cold, so like a loser I opted to stay in bed. I'll hope on the dreadmill after the hubby gets home this evening and maybe find a fun rerun on the DVR to watch while I try to burn up the track with my wicked tempo pace. But I *did* get out to run 10 miles yesterday morning and it was absolutely gorgeous. I really wasn't feeling it much when I got up, but it was like 40 degrees, and that kind of warmth in February is just too good to pass up. With most of the rest of the country in the grips of the storm of the century, I felt a little guilty about the unexpected warm weather, but since we were up to our armpits in snow about this time last year, I didn't feel *that* bad.
The first few miles felt pretty slow to me, they were probably around 10:40 or so, but right about mile 3 I hooked up with a new running friend, we'll call her Speedy (since I don't know if she wants her identity disclosed in my blog), and did a lap or two with her. She had a friend with her who turned around as I came up behind them, nudged Speedy, and said "Hey, it's your skinny friend with the cute clothes!" The cute clothes comment I can get behind, as I've dropped some bucks at Lululemon on my running attire (hey, if I'm going to get up at 5am to run, I might as well look cute doing it, right?), but somehow I still can't picture myself as the skinny girl. Too many years of being the fat girl, I guess. I mean, I weigh 5lbs less than I did when I got pregnant with Charlie, and I wasn't exactly a large girl at the time, since that was after I'd done the big weight loss, but it's still hard to think of myself as the "skinny girl." So I laughed and told them they'd made my day, and Speedy went on to tell me that a guy she runs with (he won't get a nom d'plume unless he appears in the blog a few times) had also commented to her that I keep a "great pace". I immediately wondered what kind of crack he was smoking, since my blistering 10 to 10:30 pace is pretty unimpressive by many standards, but it still made me glow a little bit to get a compliment from someone who I know runs much faster than me. We averaged between 9 and 9:30 for the laps I did with Speedy and her friend, and that little burst of speed was enough to get my speed up for the rest of my run, which I finished with an average of 10:03.
So this leaves me with a few questions about pacing. I am running WAY too fast, according to the McMillan pace calculator, but I am consistently running at sub-10:30, and feeling good while doing it. My last long run averaged about 10:24 (I think), which is well below what I should be averaging for a long run. So am I running too fast, or have I gotten faster? My next race is a 15 miler at the end of the month and I was going to try for an average pace of 10:20, but now Haakan is thinking that might be too slow and maybe I should go for something faster. I'm oddly terrified by the idea of doing it faster, but I'm thinking around 10:00 will be my marathon pace, so why should that same pace scare me when it comes to a shorter distance? Obviously I still have some issues. I'm feeling pulled between the 4:20 and 4:30 pace groups, too, since I'm not sure what would be best. I think I could probably finish somewhere between the two, but I guess I'll have to wait until I've got at least this 15 mile race out of the way to think about where I should be. I've got a half marathon at the end of March, too, which I think will be particularly illuminating in terms of pacing. I don't think I'll hit sub-2 hours, but I can hopefully get closer than I have been in the past!
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