LSD, and why this type is good for you.

Today I completed the scheduled 8 miles. I was so very tempted to wrangle a few more miles out of the run, but I had scheduled the time for 8 miles only, and had Mike waiting for me back at the car.

I was excited when I crossed the finish line after completing 8 miles, but was a bit worried that their markings were off in terms of miles. The director of the run assured me that if I went out to the 4 mile marker, turned around and came back to START, then I had indeed completed the desired 8 miles. The issue - my GPS told me it was 6.71 miles. Now that is a far cry from 8, and I am not about cheating myself out of miles at this stage in my training.

I then realized what had happened. A good portion of where I ran today was under dense trees and my GPS kept beeping at me, I assumed with info about my run and my interval clocks. I know now that it was the GPS telling me that it had no idea where I was and cut out a good 1.3 miles of my trip. Way to go. But given that I am prone to trust a race director who makes his living off of acurately planned and marked courses, I say boo to Garmin for this one.

I started out with the intention of trying the run/walk method Jeremy had shown me Wednesday at our run through Kensington. I could not remember for how long we ran the run intervals, so I plugged in 5 minutes run, 1 minute recovery walking. On my GPS you have to indicate the number of these 5/1 laps you wish to complete, instead of the mileage you want to run them in. I picked a far-off random number, and then started off on my run of 8.

The first 5 minutes came so quickly that I ran through the recovery break. The next beep for a walk break was still too soon for me, so I ran through that as well. I have to say that during my first four miles I only walked maybe 3 times for a total of 3 minutes. I would start to get into that zone - you know, the one where you never want to quit - and just have to push myself forward.

During the 1st four miles I saw that I tended to hover around a 9:45 ish pace, sometimes slowing it down to the 10:30's. On the returning four miles I slowed down to a 11:00 pace and a slowest pace of 12:45 when I really needed recovery without walking. The walking was by all accounts a slow death march because I would overcompensate by booking it a little too fast fo rmy own good. I am still learning to harness my pace, and I really should take heed in the notion that I keep with the S portion - you know the SLOW runs. This was not a race, yet somehow I felt the need to pass. To conquer. To set a PB. I am so freakin' dense sometimes.


One of these days I will learn to run a bit slower to stay the course. But for now I have a new tool at my disposal (interval running) and I plan on playing with that for a bit.

Monday I plan on doing a speedier 3/1 interval for 5 to see how that goes.

Toodles everyone -
RunenrGirl