Run Faster

Next Sunday is my first half-marathon of the year - the Colfax Half Marathon. For various reasons, including my problems earlier in the year with plantar fasciitis, I’m feeling a bit undertrained - but it’s really too late now to do much about that!

This week, I’ve been in taper mode. I’m ending the week with a total mileage of a little over 18 miles, including 8 today.

My plan for today’s run was to try and get myself into a race mentality, so I decided to do an 8 mile progression run. Progression runs are a really good workout for getting you into the racing mindset, because they start out at a slower pace and get progressively faster. This helps get you into the habit of not starting out too fast and helps teach you how to finish strong. If you’d like to learn more about the whys and hows of progression runs, Ed Eyestone wrote a good article on the topic that was published this week on the online edition of Runner’s World.

My run today went just okay - overall, it was quite a bit slower than I would like to have gone. I started out at a fairly slow place for the first 2 miles, then increased my pace by 16 seconds/mile for the second two miles. I took a brief gel/water break before starting miles 5-6, and increased my pace again, this time by 36 seconds/mile. The last 2 miles were a bit of a struggle because I think I had increased my pace too aggressively during miles 5-6, but I managed to finish fairly strong, increasing my pace by about 23 seconds/mile.

The good news for this run was that I felt pretty good about my pacing. The bad news is that it really confirmed that I’m not nearly in the shape I need to be in to try for a PR next weekend. Sadly, I’m not even sure that I’ll be able to beat my slowest half marathon time ever, but at least between last weekend’s long run and today’s run, I’m confident that I’ll be able to run the distance.

Over the next couple of days, I’ll be thinking about my race strategy and what time I can realistically shoot for. Hope your training is going well and that you’re enjoying some glorious spring weather!

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The Colfax Half Marathon is just two weeks away, so this morning I got up early to put in my last long run before race day.

For the past few weeks, I haven’t managed to get out of the house much before 10 a.m. for my long runs, but this week I was out by 6:30 a.m. The trail that I do most of my long runs on - the Big Dry Creek trail - usually has quite a few people on it by the time I get on it, but this morning, I think I only saw 3 people during the entire run. I did see quite a few more cottontail rabbits than I usually see though, and also the usual collection of prairie dogs.

I opted to go minimalist today and forgo the iPod since I’m not planning to wear it for the half. I have been doing most of my longer runs with it lately, and I actually really enjoyed going without it. I guess I just felt more in tune with the environment, and I liked hearing the geese fly overhead and come in for landings at the little ponds near the trail.

I’ve pretty much given up on the idea of setting a PR at Colfax since I had to take a lot of time off when I was trying to recover from plantar fasciitis, so I didn’t even try to go for speed during this morning’s run. Instead, I settled into a nice, relaxed pace, not paying too much attention to my Garmin except for the mileage beeps so I’d know when to turn around and head for home.

All in all, it was a really good run. I felt strong throughout, which kind of surprised me because this was my longest run in several weeks. I guess I was helped either by a bit of residual stamina that I didn’t think I had, or maybe it was just the Honey Stinger gels that I took at about 4 miles and 8 miles.

Either way, I ended up running a negative split, and also a few seconds per mile faster than my 10 miler last week, which really helps my confidence heading into my taper weeks.

I hope everyone’s training is going well, and wish you all luck at your upcoming racees.

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