Wow, I had a great run today. Actually, in many ways it wasn't anything special, but it was my longest run (18.3 km) since the marathon and also my first run by myself. On Tuesday and Thursday I went out with other people from the gym and really enjoyed it, especially the Thursday where we went to a new area (for me) and did some gentle hill repeats. And I had planned to run on Friday, then today, but then remembered that we were going out with people on Saturday evening and that I probably wouldn't feel like getting up early and running today. So no way was I going to run Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Anyway, yesterday although the temperature was not actually that cold, there was quite a strong, cold-ish wind, and after spending three hours working outside in the yard with DH I just decided to go today instead. And I'm sure substituting the elliptical on Friday was an equally good workout.
DH and I both went out around 12:30 today (I was right about not wanting to get up early) and the conditions were really nice. 12 or 13 C, only light winds, overcast - very comfortable. I was wearing a long-sleeved shirt and capris, and shorts would have been better, but it wasn't hugely uncomfortable. My plan was to go for an hour and a half, so no need to carry water, no gels, no fuel belt - what a pleasant change overall from all those long marathon training runs!
My initial pace was way too fast to be sustainable, and I knew it, but didn't care. It just felt so good to be out there moving without any time pressures, or concerns about running too hard in training. About half an hour in I did five hill repeats on a fairly short and gentle hill (about 30 seconds up), then continued on and veered a little off course to do one long, fairly steep hill that I hadn't run before, then turned around and went for a while before doing another long, fairly steep hill that I also hadn't run before, and then had to climb one last, winding hill to get onto my route home. The hills definitely slowed me down (was really just plodding up the long ones), although by that point I had already slowed up anyway. Final run time was about 1:34, so less than race pace, but still pretty fast.
I love, love, love these non-training intervals. I really want to do Boston (got the official confirmation on Friday, yippee!), and want to have a good run (i.e.: don't want to lose it on the hills or anywhere else, want to enjoy the experience), but I love running just to run. Not having to do X number of miles, slowing down a little to have fun running with someone else and not worrying about the exact mileage, not worrying about the long-term impact of subbing a day on on the elliptical, all of that stuff.
But I will train for ATB and Boston. Specifically, I will do a lot more hill training. One of the people I was out with on Thursday said he loves hill training because it builds endurance without the injury risk of speedwork. And I can completely see where he is coming from with that. One reason I don't (or hardly ever) do speedwork is that I don't like it. But part of me also worries about injury because I'm not sure that my hips are really into running those flat out intervals. But I'll try it over the winter and see how it goes.
It would definitely be good to bump up my endurance. I was extremely happy with my Scotiabank time and with the quick recovery, but I'd love to have been able to keep up the pace for those last few km. Actually, if I look at my data for the last 1.2 km, it's almost exactly 5:00 minutes/km, so according to my watch that determination near the end had a bigger effect than I realised at the time. Okay, so it was less than a minute's worth of time, but having been able to get back to that pace for that long makes me happy.
But that was a pretty much flat course and I'm not at all confident that at my current fitness level I would have been able to bump to that pace near the end after doing a bunch of hills. Five and six months from now I'd like to feel that much stronger. Right now I think about the hills in Boston and kind of cringe...
So, although formal training doesn't start until sometime in November (need to pull a few programs from the internet and come up with a hybrid that will work for me), I'm going to start incorporating more hill repeats into my day to day runs. Relatively easy ones, to start, but working up to multiple assaults on Potter Road with minimal loss of endurance. It will be painful but do-able.
Next run scheduled for Tuesday - probably a fairly easy one. Then I think the same group is supposed to do repeats on another hill on Thursday. I'll probably run by myself on Friday and again on Sunday. Hope next week feels as good as this one!
DH and I both went out around 12:30 today (I was right about not wanting to get up early) and the conditions were really nice. 12 or 13 C, only light winds, overcast - very comfortable. I was wearing a long-sleeved shirt and capris, and shorts would have been better, but it wasn't hugely uncomfortable. My plan was to go for an hour and a half, so no need to carry water, no gels, no fuel belt - what a pleasant change overall from all those long marathon training runs!
My initial pace was way too fast to be sustainable, and I knew it, but didn't care. It just felt so good to be out there moving without any time pressures, or concerns about running too hard in training. About half an hour in I did five hill repeats on a fairly short and gentle hill (about 30 seconds up), then continued on and veered a little off course to do one long, fairly steep hill that I hadn't run before, then turned around and went for a while before doing another long, fairly steep hill that I also hadn't run before, and then had to climb one last, winding hill to get onto my route home. The hills definitely slowed me down (was really just plodding up the long ones), although by that point I had already slowed up anyway. Final run time was about 1:34, so less than race pace, but still pretty fast.
I love, love, love these non-training intervals. I really want to do Boston (got the official confirmation on Friday, yippee!), and want to have a good run (i.e.: don't want to lose it on the hills or anywhere else, want to enjoy the experience), but I love running just to run. Not having to do X number of miles, slowing down a little to have fun running with someone else and not worrying about the exact mileage, not worrying about the long-term impact of subbing a day on on the elliptical, all of that stuff.
But I will train for ATB and Boston. Specifically, I will do a lot more hill training. One of the people I was out with on Thursday said he loves hill training because it builds endurance without the injury risk of speedwork. And I can completely see where he is coming from with that. One reason I don't (or hardly ever) do speedwork is that I don't like it. But part of me also worries about injury because I'm not sure that my hips are really into running those flat out intervals. But I'll try it over the winter and see how it goes.
It would definitely be good to bump up my endurance. I was extremely happy with my Scotiabank time and with the quick recovery, but I'd love to have been able to keep up the pace for those last few km. Actually, if I look at my data for the last 1.2 km, it's almost exactly 5:00 minutes/km, so according to my watch that determination near the end had a bigger effect than I realised at the time. Okay, so it was less than a minute's worth of time, but having been able to get back to that pace for that long makes me happy.
But that was a pretty much flat course and I'm not at all confident that at my current fitness level I would have been able to bump to that pace near the end after doing a bunch of hills. Five and six months from now I'd like to feel that much stronger. Right now I think about the hills in Boston and kind of cringe...
So, although formal training doesn't start until sometime in November (need to pull a few programs from the internet and come up with a hybrid that will work for me), I'm going to start incorporating more hill repeats into my day to day runs. Relatively easy ones, to start, but working up to multiple assaults on Potter Road with minimal loss of endurance. It will be painful but do-able.
Next run scheduled for Tuesday - probably a fairly easy one. Then I think the same group is supposed to do repeats on another hill on Thursday. I'll probably run by myself on Friday and again on Sunday. Hope next week feels as good as this one!
posted by Jogger Barbie | 7:39 PM
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