Yesterday I squeezed in a run between work and a later-in-the-evening engagement. Left my desk at 5 PM on the dot and was running by 5:50 PM (had to stop at gym first since I needed to shower & change again after the workout). In a delightfully ironic move, I cabbed it to Central Park for the 4-mile loop I wanted to run because I was avoiding adding extra miles to my workout my jogging over there.
I’m struggling a bit these days knowing at what pace I should hit for my recovery runs, my pace runs, and my long runs. I suspect tonight’s 4-mile loop of the park was too fast at an 8:48 average pace. But I will say this: I didn’t even notice. I didn’t even realize I ran up Cat Hill until I looked at my splits and saw the first mile (which included Cat Hill) was the slowest at 9:13, and my HR the fastest at 164. Mile 4 was pretty cool, as I swooped down the west side and back across the 72nd Street Transverse to the east side–8:26 with HR of 158. (4.29 miles in 37:45.)
Based on this week’s pace run, I am going to try and run sub-8’s in next weekend’s Haiti 4-Miler. In preparation, on Tuesday morning I will head to the Astoria track and do a workout suggested by one of my Twitter buddies. 3 x 1-mile repeats at 7:45 pace with 800 meter recoveries. It’s gonna be tough but I have a little flutter of anticipation in my stomach.
But back to Central Park. There was still the palest hint of daylight when I began my loop, and I passed a fair amount of runners but no one I recognized. The air was crisp, with the trees blocking most of the wind. I tell you, readers and runners, there are few sights that make me feel as possessive of my city as the view you get running down the west side of the park. There’s that stretch, especially when the branches are bare, where you can see the reservoir on the left, snow-covered grounds on either side, and ahead of you in the distance the glittering skyline of Midtown West’s skyscrapers and tall buildings. This is my park and this is my city. Where else could I possibly be a runner?
Last night, I slept like a baby, people. With a city like that at my back, how else should I sleep?
You don’t run, you swoop!!!
Sub 8’s Mama Bear, ALL THE WAY!!!
Sounds like you had a fantastic run! Great job getting out there after work. I am back and forth on doing the run for haiti next week. Great cause and I’m sure you will rock it! 🙂
Beautiful. Just beautiful. I am hoping & praying to get into the NY Marathon. It would be a dream. Really.
Good luck with the lottery!
ugh, i can’t wait to run together. Next week? I’m not germy any more, no fever, and I’m DYING to catch up with you!!
“3 x 1-mile repeats at 7:45 pace with 800 meter recoveries.” Why?
So I can get a feel for the race pace, was his logic. But what are you thinking, Joe?
That makes sense. I wondered.
But in a general sense, it seems neither fish (interval) nor fowl (tempo). I plugged your Corbitt 15K into a Daniels-based calculator. That translates, btw, into a 39:56 5 miler, i.e., sub-8.
It translates into an 8:12 tempo pace, and a 7:28 interval pace (which you would never do because you can’t exceed 5 minutes for an interval).
I guess it’s a “cruise interval,” i.e., something faster than a regular tempo. But even that is unclear, as this article I just found from Daniels suggests.
For my money, the number 1 workout is 20 minutes at tempo pace (or, as one gets into shape, 2 X 20 min. w/ 4 minutes between). It’s what I did on Tuesday, keeping each lap within 1 or 2 seconds of each other. One of its most important elements is mental; it’s fast enough so that when you get to six or seven minutes you’re wondering if you can make it, but slow enough so that if you keep your head you know you will. And pushing through minutes 13 to 17 is a mental accomplishment/confidence booster of the first order (as I well know).
Plus it has the benefit of forcing you to focus on your form. Nothing better than a track work-out to improve form, which translates into improved marathon performance.
It’s not race-specific, i.e., it’s not the pace for a particular race (e.g., a four-miler). Indeed the only race-specific pace is MP, but that’s a different thing. It’s part of the big-picture. What is the good of running 7:45s when you’re training for London? As Daniels says, too fast for tempos, too slow for intervals.
That’s interesting. When I pull up that chart, it gives a half-marathon PR 2 minutes slower than my best, and a marathon PR 5 minutes faster than my best. Weird, considering I made both PR’s within 3 weeks of each other.
I must think about your comments, and about that chart, further. So you think I should run 2 x 20 minutes at 8:12 pace. I will ponder.
Don’t know about doing it twice. Do one and see how it goes.
As to the conversion table, it has problems between an HM and a marathon, but works well from HM down. For me, it predicts a marathon 3 minutes faster than I actually did based on a HM 4 weeks before, but that HM pretty well predicts all of my shorter races, down to the mile. In part it shows the unpredictability of a marathon. But also your potential.
One point about the workout paces, it is based on current condition/fitness, hence my reference to the 15K.
Joe-
What she ran might actually qualify as CV intervals. In fact, I think I remember discussing this with your briefly on a run a couple of years ago.
-herb