There are only a few times that the peanut butter and butter in a sandwich mix at just the right combination to create a heavenly flavor. Likewise… there is a buzz that you can get after 1 or 2 beers that can put you on cloud nine… but it doesn’t happen very often.
When running, there are times when my legs are just humming along and I feel they are responsive and a finely tuned engine that will take me wherever I want to go. They feel good… like a wild stallion that just wants to take off running. That feeling doesn’t happen very often though. Most of the time it seems like a lot of aches… pains… and just holding on.
This training cycle I am forcing myself to run a lot slower during my long runs and my recovery runs. The theory being… I want to find that awesome feeling in my legs where I can really push it. I need that more often to be able to improve I think. It is a strange balance… a catch 22 almost (which is a great book by the way).
I think I will just try to focus on what the purpose of each run is. Is it a long run? No rush then. Recovery? Very easy. Tempo? Giddy up. Really I need to try to get that great feeling on my tempo/cruise intervals, and strides. If I am running too hard on the other things… I mess up being able to fly when I need to.
An interesting note is that I ran a lot slower when training for Eugene than Portland, but my time for the Eugene marathon was like 25 minutes FASTER. Some of that is obviously from hitting the wall in Portland (after a mental breakdown earlier), or perhaps not enough miles put in… but I think another part is that I just wore my legs out. I’m really not experienced enough to know.
Honestly I didn’t buy that running slower could actually help you improve. I drank the ‘long slow runs makes long slow runners’ Kool-Aid. I am still not sure… but I am going to finish my training for Seattle with slower long runs… and make another evaluation then.
1 comment:
I also have tried to do the slow long runs but I heard an interview with Joan Benoit Samuelson who said she went out hard all the time and for some reason I have adopted that mantra. I do try and run 30-40 seconds slower but it is hard sometimes.
I must say though that resting the week before a race really works. I ran probably my best long distance race yesterday and had those legs that felt like I was a stallion
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