I was able to convince Linda to start with the rest of the group in today’s 12 miler, instead of starting earlier. We were going to try to see how many people we could pass who were running non-stop, while we did a 4 minute run with a 1 minute walk break. After seesawing back and forth with some runners where we would catch up with them, then they would lead again during our walk breaks, we eventually passed quite a few of them and left them behind up to 8 miles when the runners ahead were too far to catch anymore.
Today was a good cardiovascular day of running because it caused some strain to my breathing and elevated my pulse rate during the run portion. It was like doing a tempo effort or lactate threshold effort, or whatever you want to call it. When I checked my splits on the GPS watch, it showed that at some points we were hitting as fast as 9:06 per mile for the 4 minute run portions specially during the middle and later part of the run. Linda even noticed that my footstrikes weren’t so heavy at the start, but I brought it to her attention later in the last four miles how heavy and noisy they have become. Of course it was in the last four miles that I could feel my ankle tendons straining at the effort we were putting in. I knew we were running harder than usual but wasn’t sure what the pace really was until we finished. It turned out to be 10:09 minutes per mile, which was faster than when I ran last Thursday with considerably more effort and only for six miles. That ended up to be a 10:31 pace, which I thought that was pretty good for running and walking. So today’s pace was even better and a pleasant surprise. Though my ankles are hurting right now, I take solace that I may be able to take a few days off to recover. I don’t expect to run that hard next Saturday because the distance is longer, but today’s effort for the 12 miler was just right. Thanks again Linda, for hanging with me.
3 comments:
hi Noel, thanks for a great run on Saturday! Hope you are feeling good today. I'm fine, not too much soreness but I do wonder if I am in the right (size) shoes, so I am going to check that out later today.
Noel, sounds like you are getting better! You are doing well on your times too--very impressive. What are you doing to heal your ankles after your runs?
Hmmm, I thought I left a response here earlier, but it disappeared. Anyway, Sophie, I'm icing my ankles about twice a day but my recovery is very slow. I'm doing just enough so that I can still do the Saturday training run. The run/walk enables me to still run long distance even though it takes me longer and it helps by giving my ankles a one minute break from the pounding. My stride is so biomechanically inefficient that I land on the pavement too hard. My right ankle is permanently injured and I'm beginning to feel pain on my left too so I'm worried about that.
Linda and Sophie, thanks for reading :)
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