Surprising Paces
Looking back at my weekly summary while I finish my lunch, I realized that my easy seven mile run was done at an 8:36 pace, on the trail. Figure the soft surface is good for sapping a few seconds per mile here and there as well. It was fun - not a big deal. My “marathon pace” run felt quite a bit harder, and I was concentrating a lot more on breathing and form throughout it. It was on asphalt, and my overall pace for it was 8:19.
WTF?
Why is getting that last :17/mile so difficult? Was it just a bad day? It didn’t feel like one… Could I have been running faster for the same perceived effort on Saturday? There were some hills, but my pace was pretty consistent both up and down the different terrain. Am I just psyching myself out by expecting it to be difficult?
I don’t have any answers yet, but its something to think about. Any thoughts out there from the wise folk in the RBF? Is it just me, or does this happen to you too?
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Nov 8th 2004
12:58 PM
I’ve always been told that trail running is slower than road running. Maybe that has something to do with it. I’m no expert though. Sounds like good running nonetheless.
Nov 8th 2004
1:16 PM
Hi, Karen. That was actually part of my confusion - my effort on the trail was significantly less than my effort on the road. If I give myself an extra, say, :10 of pace because of the trail surface, that puts my paces even closer together.
Nov 8th 2004
2:24 PM
I think alot depends on where you were the week leading up to it. The week just before your trail run was fairly light except for the 11 mile long run (9:30 pace). But you had 5 days of some pretty hard workouts and runs before the “pace” run. I’d say those contributed to some wear on the muscles, more so than the week before. So a little more effort than you’d expect for 30+ seconds might be in order.
Looks like a pretty tough schedule. I think you are really pounding it out there.
Nov 8th 2004
4:32 PM
Just make sure that your “easy” runs are truly easy, more like your enforced low HR runs, so that you are fully rested and ready for the more intense hard workouts (long run, pace run, speedwork). It’s easy to get carried away with those recovery runs, but over time, that can hurt you more than help if you’re not letting your body recover from the hard runs.
Nov 8th 2004
5:29 PM
wow both paces sure seems fast to me.
Nov 9th 2004
1:21 PM
Jon and Jay - those are good points. I know that I’ve been more disciplined with my running lately, which has resulted in a moderately steep weekly mileage increase. I’ll just have to keep an eye on it, I guess. I tried harder (successfully) today to keep my 7 mile run slower than a 9:00 pace, with no big finishing kick to wear me out.