Thursday, April 23, 2009

When Is It Going To Rain?

04/21/09
Tuesday

Suprise.....raining today. Stopped at pineland for a 4-5 mile tempo run. I wanted to speed things up a bit and work the trails a fair amount faster than last Saturday's long slow run.

The rain didn't bother me that much but the soft ground did. It was tiring as my feet would sponge and give way as I tried to push off my toes. This really took the freshness out of my legs and affected my cardio.

My intent to run 4 or 5 fast trail miles (8-8:30 pace) turned into a much slower 8:50- 9:50 pace "not so speedy" 3 mile run. A bit disapointing to say the least.

I suppose I can blame the conditions because my heart rate was high enough to prove to me that I was working hard but just with no visible results. I am sure the workout helped strengthen me......it just didn't feel like it.

I had problems tonite with the garmen as it kept losing signal (I think because of the overcast) so I had to estimate the distance a bit. The Garmen read 2.5 miles and the Nano registered 3.22 miles.....I called it 3 miles....I suppose that is close enough.

3 miles@ 27:50.....(9:18 av pace)
Splits:
9:51....142-161
9:07....155-161
8:52....150-165

Cooldown .75 @ 15:05 pace. 140 heart rate to 112 My lower right back bothered me a bit during the cooldown ...not sure why.

04/22/09
Wednesday

It was quite nice all day and I looked forward to a nice 5 mile run on the road to experience same steady speed. Unfortunately the skys opened up at about 4:25 and it continued raining on my way home.

After yesterday, I just didn't feel like running in the rain and tonite it just felt chilly to me. So I decided to hit the treadmill and work on hills along with a tempo run.

I ran a mile hill workout at 10% grade and 3.5 - 4.5 speed with a kick at 5speed.
Though my average pace for the mile was 10:17, I started at 14:10 and kept speeding up until I was running 8:29 with a kick of 8:07.

I worked hard on the hill section and felt pretty satisfied with the results. Next I dropped the grade to 4% and kept the speed on 5 mph for a 3.1 run. The splits were odd as I slowed down in the third mile from the second even though I felt like I was running faster.

3.1 miles @26:04..(8:25 pace)
Splits:
8:53
7:20
7:53

I finished the workout with a .75 mile cooldown walk.

3 comments:

Dan said...

Kevin
Did you do your long run on the Pineland 50K course? Still toying with the idea of doing the 50K if it's not too hot that day. Wondering what the course is like. All I know it that it is a rollercoaster.

Laurel said...

I know what you mean about the spongy trails. You just can't get a good push off for speed work. But it is good strength work, kind of the same kind of resistence training you get running in sand.

Two said...

Yeah, I agree with Laurel. The spongey stuff totally puts a hitch in the giddy up, but it also provides that good resistance. You must have recovered well from the long effort though with the good work on the treadmill?