10/17 15 miler last 6 @ HMP

Today was a "race simulator" workout for my upcoming half marathon (now just 3 weeks away!) I decided to do the whole run on pavement to make it more realistic. I headed out around 7am in cool, overcast fall weather, with temps in the upper 40s. 

I headed outbound on local surface roads. Traffic was quiet on an early Saturday, and the fall colors along with a cool, light breeze, made for a comfortable run as I pushed along through deep suburbia, leaf-peeping and checking out the grand houses' halloween decorations. 

The first 2 miles passed in slow, warmup mode, 8:50, 8:25. Then, warmed up, I started clicking along in the high 7s, 7:40, 7:50, 7:26. Eventually, after flirting with it a couple of times, I picked up the bike trail for good, running until my turnaround. 

An hour into the run, now, I was seeing more people on the trail, enjoying the clement fall weather, mostly walking or running, but a few intrepid bikers managing over the thick bed of pine needles that was down on the path. 

Late into mile 8 I realized I was supposed to eat my granola bar. I'm iffy on taking food during a half, but I thought it was worth the experiment. I choked it down around mile 8.8, and then stopped briefly for a quick stretch before the fun bit kicked off. 

Then it was onto the tempo. Five miles of bike trail, and then a little under a mile back on my home road. I settled into my tempo pace, finding ~7:00 quite comfortable to start. From there I felt that I was holding steady or accelerating, but my watch was showing the opposite. Eventually I concluded it was losing the plot, and just focused on running by feel. 

The bikeway is beautiful, fully enclosed by the arching canopy of the enclosing trees, littered with leaves and pine needles, crossed here and there by roads, but fortunately only one large crossing during the tempo section. It is straight, flat, unmolested by cars--not much to do but focus on stride, breath, cadence, on the laboring body speeding on its way. 

I eventually made it to my home road and lucked out again with a gap in traffic to cross. I wanted to focus on closing out that last mile, and pretended to myself I could hear the din of a crowd in the distance, pulling me toward an imagined finish. 

Up through mile 5 I would say I was running controlled and still fairly comfortable, but mile 6 just felt hard. My legs were getting cooked now, and I just concentrated on the seconds passing on my watch (GPS had fully dropped by now, so I determined to run 7 min for the last mile). 

At last I hit the end, and indulged in a hands-on-knees pant for a few seconds. Done! And still feeling pretty good. I noted the address I was closest to so I could re-create my tempo route in google pedometer and calculate a real pace for the whole section. 

 Splits:

Mile 10:  6:59

Mile 11: 6:55

Mile 12: 6:55

Mile 13: 6:42

Mile 14: 6:37

Mile 15: 6:39

 

My total distance was actually 15.1, which is convenient because if you lop off my first two miles as a warmup, then you get a half marathon of 96:50 or so. My half marathon has a 90 minute pace group; I'm thinking of going out with them. Right now it feels pretty achievable.  

10/9 12 mile + 10/13 6x800

10/10 12 mile

 I needed to squeeze this in before driving up to Maine. Fortunately this was a recovery week so the goal was a fairly easy long run--9 miles relaxed and then 3 miles at 7:20-7:35 pace. I started early, which means in darkness now that we are getting into autumn. Most of the run was on side road and bike trail with a pleasant loop in one of the local parks. 

I kept a careful eye on the GPS during the tempo section to try and avoid overrunning it. I can't say I paced it naturally, but checking regular and intentionally backing off toward the end of each mile I kept it near the pace ceiling. It felt good! Very gratifying to feel like the previous hard runs are making a difference. 

Mile 10: 7:21

Mile 11: 7:17

Mile 12: 7:17

 

10/13 6x800 

A cloudy morning, starting in full darkness around 6am. I thought to bring a flashlight with me, which was good because my light vest was low on charge. Cool in the lower 50s, with a light drizzle. I did 4 striders on the pavement (field was very wet), then lined up for the repeats. 

Conveniently, the bikeway has granite plinths marking quarter mile intervals. The stretch I've been working on on is a little bit more than 1km long, and has three. So distance was easy to calculate, albeit imperial (so 1/2 mile intervals, rather than 800m). 

I was going for a fast-but-controlled feeling. Ran the first 5 that way and then just ran hard for the 6th. I messed up the 2nd interval because I misread a plinth in the dark (there were two close together, and I thought the nearer one was the quarter-mile post--it wasn't). 

Nominal goal pace @ 3:05-3:10, 90s jog recovery.  

1.  3:00

2. 2:48+0:17 (??) <-- messy, I slowed way down and then sped up when I realized my mistake.

3. 3:01

4. 3:05

5. 3:01

6. 2:57 

10/6 2 x 3km repeats

Out the door by 6am. It was full dark when I left the house, Orion bright in the southern sky and a planet (Jupiter?) shining a brilliant accompaniment to the sickle moon. By the time I made it to the bikeway, the predawn light had begun to illuminate the adjoining field. I did 4 striders on the grass to stretch out my legs. 

The goal for today was to demonstrate some more pace control and even split the intervals as much as possible. I'd award myself a partial success. I started too fast again, but I kept the first interval consistently at threshold, "short words and phrases" pace. The second interval I went out too slow and then picked it up for the 2nd and 3rd km. I felt pretty consistently strong throughout, although for the 3rd km of the last interval I was just running hard, no longer threshold. 

Split intervals as before. Goal pace 4:00/km. 

(3km)  3:52  / 4:05 / 4:03   = 11:59

3 min jog recovery

(3km)  4:04 / 3:55 / 3:57   = 11:56

 

10/3 15 mile long run (5 mi HMP)

This is close to peak long run effort in my training arc. In two weeks I will repeat the workout with 6 miles @ HMP (half marathon pace, in my case 6:55 or thereabouts). 

 Weather was gorgeous today. I left a bit late (7:30), after figuring out my route. After last workout I didn't trust the GPS to keep synced in the heavy tree cover we have around here in metrowest Massachusetts. I went old school, plotting the 5 mile tempo section on google pedometer along the rail trail, and writing down road crossings and their distances. Then I wrote down lap times on my hand. 

Results:

 10 miles easy, then:

 

The tempo section felt good, but I overran it again. In retrospect I realized that when I paused for a couple of seconds to stretch before the tempo, the GPS re-synced. It actually would have told me I was going too fast if I had looked at my pace. I think my plan for next tempo will be to make sure GPS is re-synced, and then use it to keep my pace @ 7:00 min/mile for the first 1-2 intervals, no matter how good I feel. Walked home, took a swig of OJ and lay in the grass for a good few minutes. Then I staggered up and mowed the lawn :-)   

 

 

@ 6:55 min pace (415s / mi)
                                TIME     LAP (GOAL)   LAP ACTUAL
0.0000 mi -- F*** Trail         0s       0            0
1.0343 mi -- D**** Rd           429s     7:09         6:53
1.6144 mi -- P**** Rd           670s     4:01         3:50
2.0894 mi -- H**** Rd           867s     3:17         3:16 (intentionally backed off)
2.9394 mi -- B**** trail        1219s    5:52         5:36 (mild downhill)
3.7369 mi -- O**** Rd           1551s    5:32         5:31 (mild uphill)
4.3546 mi -- H**** Rd           1807s    4:16         4:15 (mild uphill)
5.0170 mi -- 170 *** Rd         2082s    4:35         4:17 (flattish)

9/29 -- 3 x 2km split intervals

 Repeat of last week, this time trying to back off and actually run threshold pace. I don't have any good way of gauging pace mid-interval, so each 1km stretch is done by feel. I did think I backed it off successfully, and tested myself by saying some short phrases between breaths. I also didn't quite nail the pacing goals, which were 3:56-4:00 / km. 

 The bike trail was damp, with many sticks and leaves down. Footing wasn't terrible (except for the turnaround, where I almost wiped out on a mudslick in the first interval). All the same I would estimate conditions were ~2s /km slower than last week. 

 7.75mi total. Did 4 grass striders to loosen up beforehand. 

Interval 1: 3:54 / 4:04  (7:58)

Interval 2: 4:02 / 4:06  (8:08 ouch)

Interval 3: 3:59 / 3:59  (7:58)

Jog rest ~110s.