7.72 Miles Easy and Learning About My Body

8.72 Miles total at 7:23 pace but 1 mile didn’t count because Sean said any mileage over 7:30 doesn’t count toward weekly mileage. I did the first mile at 9 minute pace. The Garmin was all over the place for most of the run. It had me going sub 5 pace, and then 5:30 pace, and then 6 minute pace. At a couple of points in time I probably was going sub 7 pace but not as fast as the times above. I found out that the Garmin was giving me about .3 miles, thereby making my total pace seem to be 7:10 pace. I readjusted the results and came back with 7:23 pace. The legs are still trashed but less so than yesterday.

After talking with Sean today we decided that comparing tempo run results between he, Luis, and I isn’t a good indicator of fitness for me. At least not for the 5k and 10k distances. So there has to be a handicap factored in. My body goes about a different way to produce the results in races, so tempo runs are always going to short change my fitness level. Most of my strength comes from speed and power (high rate of turnover, power). This is a real advantage at the shorter distances, but it starts to break down when you try to efficiently use it for longer distances. So the idea is to keep getting the tempo work in and make my body as efficient as it can be. This is why I believe training for marathon’s are great for me but not necessarily for others since I naturally already have the speed, but I don’t have the strength endurance. The results of the marathon training allow me to maintain my speed over longer distances every year, thereby consistently allowing me to improve.  

Granted, I’m no physiologist, but these are the things that I have noticed over the years.