Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Need for Speed III

Yesterday's speed work yielded mixed results. The weather: Fantastic. 74 degrees! Shorts...no hats, gloves, or running jackets. Nice.

However, I was breaking in a new pair of shoes. I knew better than to break them in during intense running but I'm not that bright. Basically, I said, 'This is going to hurt' and took them out of the box, clipped the tags, put them on, and took off.

After mile 2, I needed a 15 second rest. I even stopped the Garmin clock during this time. I felt like I had flipper's on my feet. After mile 3, I slowed to a crawl for another 15 seconds before sucking it back up and resuming a decent pace for the final 2 miles.

Funny thing I've notice about myself - not sure if anyone else has noticed this about themselves - but, if I go out too fast and get really run down quickly, I find that if I just take a quick break...walk for a few seconds, stop and rest for a few seconds, take a quick drink of water, etc...my body seems to reset entirely and I can get right back going with little sign of the previous fatigue. It's like my cardiovascular is just a step behind my legs and needs to "catch up". Once it does, I can get back rolling again. Weird. Probably has something to do with lactic acid levels or something.

The result of this work-out indicates I'm still not able to maintain a consistent speed. I did record my single best mile of the year so far but dropped every mile thereafter. My focus is to maintain speed across 3 miles before stepping back a bit for miles 4 and 5. Still a work in progress.

The numbers:

5.02 miles
34:40 time
6:54 pace

Mile 1 6:38 *Best Mile in 2007
Mile 2 6:49
Mile 3 6:54
Mile 4 7:17 * Mile 4 is always my worst
Mile 5 6:52* Mile 5 is always faster than 4. Running to the finish harder?

Overall, I obtained my stated goal of 5 miles in under 35 minutes. Next up, how about 3 miles at a consistent 6:45 pace or less?

4 comments:

L*I*S*A said...

Perhaps some lactate threshold runs would help that cardiovascular system catch up to your legs. It's detailed in the Pfitz plan.

Mike said...

y'know i'm having trouble being sympathatic to someone whose slowest gawd awful mile is still way faster than me at my fastest.

So have you committed to a BQ attempt yet as the BS???

Russ said...

i agree with mike...though i will be back there someday...this i now..the last 4 days were a nice breath of fresh air..nice slap in the face with the snow this morning, eh?

Nitmos said...

BQ for BS is still only a distant possibility. I'm working towards it but don't think I'll quite get there by then. I'm thinking of focusing on this for Chicago later in the year.