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Events:Stone Cat 50 Mile Trail Race November 6, 2010 Middlesex Fells Trail Race December 4, 2010 AMC Mountaineering Committee Ice Program Winter 2011 AMC Mountaineering Committee Rock Program Spring 2011 Pictures:AlbumRunning Data:20102009 2008 |
Mon, 31 May 2010
Speed Work - The First to Die of a Heart Attack Loses
Damn! I thought I was clever to come up with this idea to do my speed training in hour long runs once or twice a week. The idea was to improve by gradually covering more ground in the limited time. This weekend's runs suggest some benefits of this plan and some flaws. First the benefits: ideally this plan will require me to pay more attention to how my body is handling the stress of running fast, and I'll recalibrate my pace to make it back home at one hour. This encourages a kind of calculation around 25 minutes in. Do I feel tired or sore? I should turn around early and slow down. Could I maintain this pace for another half hour? I should turn around at the 30 minute mark. Could I speed up at the end and empty the tanks? I should turn around after 32 minutes and try to make up the extra distance by running faster. This last option encourages me to run negative splits, a perpetual goal of the distance runner: to run hard but to conserve enough energy to speed up over time. On my early runs under this plan, my mind couldn't keep up with my legs, and I realize now I could have run faster. But it's not all Zen and mind/body cooperation. Saturday was my 43rd birthday, and I was bent on a personal record for an hour long run. I had made 7.4 miles the last time, and I wanted 8. So, disregarding sore legs, heat, humidity, and hangover, I ran out my front door like the police were after me. I started to lose it at mile 4, and had to walk by mile 4.5. Dr. Tim Noakes who writes about medicine for runners, believes that fatigue is a neurological response that functions to protect the heart from extreme exertion. I have rarely felt systemic fatigue, but I did on Saturday. Climbing the Beachmont hill at 4.5 miles in, I had a terrible feeling of exhaustion and despair. In total I made 7.62 in an hour and 12 minutes. Today, running more conservatively, I managed 7.66 miles in 1:03. These both fail to meet the 1 hour time limit, the boundary for the crucial goal of knowing what I can do, but today's run was still reassuring. The downside is, of course, that I feel like I'm racing myself now. The potential result seems to be pushing so hard that I end up hurting myself. I'll try to avoid that.
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