Mile Breakdown
Just for fun, I wanted to see what my splits were for the mile yesterday:
.25 - 1:30 - 1:30 - 6:00 pace
.50 - 2:58 - 1:28 - 5:56 pace
.75 - 4:50 - 1:52 - 7:36 pace
1.0 - 6:38 - 1:48 - 7:12 pace
So not exactly negative splits. You can really see where I got hit the worst, in the third quarter. The good news is that I feel that, with some more speedwork to build my threshold, I could have kept the 6:00 pace for the entire run. So that’s my goal for next year, nice and simple: under six minutes. If I get significantly faster next summer I’ll boost my goal, but that’s a minimum.
In lighter news, I sent an email to my coach thanking him for his support (read: yelling) on the bridge in the last stretch, and mentioned that I’d be rejoining the group in about six weeks. Got a response back:
Good job today, you looked great.Your form is great ,but you need power in your leg. I see you soon.
Its funny - I think that that simple email meant more to me than any “employee excellence” award or similar item. Possibly because running is something that doesn’t just come easily to me, so I’ve really hard to work at it - especially my form! Somehow, that makes a quick note like this all the more powerful.
I have four miles on the schedule today, and I just realized that I didn’t bring my gym gear up to the office (and I know I’ll be working late tonight). So I’ll probably take the extra day off and do 4 tomorrow instead of 2. Keep on running out there!
Popularity: 1%
Sep 7th 2004
1:23 PM
Richard, can you make a post about the 4/4, 2/2 breathing pattern stuff? I see you talk about it and I thought I understood it, but I don’t. I think it has to do with steps and inhaling and such.
Sep 7th 2004
1:37 PM
I’ll do a better post in the future, but basically I use it to denote how many footfalls sound while I’m inhaling/exhaling. So 4/4 would mean that I start breathing in, I run LRLR (or RLRL), then I start breathing out and run LRLR again. 3/2 would mean that I ran LRL while inhaling, then just LR while exhaling. L and R in those patters refer to my Left and Right feet hitting the ground :-) Sorry for the confusion.
Sep 8th 2004
3:53 PM
Ah, that makes sense. I find that when I get tired I inhale in two small breaths and exhale with one longer one. It would would be a 2/2 pattern by your method if the inhale was one long breath.