May 20th, 2009 – Half Marathon Training Easy Run

The new training regimen has me running three days a week in what it terms an easy run.  The one thing that seems most interesting to me is that the easy run isn’t slower, it is just fewer miles.  It stays on the same pace as the long run throughout the training program, so from a race perspective, it is just shorter.  That’s an odd premise for me yet again as easy runs had always been about slower pace to keep my heart rate in lower registers.  Should be an interesting 16 weeks to say the least.

I still have not quite determined the best method to handling warm up and cool down phases.  The running program doesn’t mention them on most of the runs and those that do specifically call out the total distance is to include warm up and cool down.  So, I’m sort of skirting the program to give myself some time for warm and cool, if only because it was part of my routine before now.  I’ll see how it goes.  In theory, for warm, I can just run slower for the first bit, assuming I pick up my pace in later miles to “catch up” the average mile pace.  That seems less valuable though, as I really want to get into a groove with a single pace.

Housekeeping:  6.0 miles in 55 minutes for an average pace of 9:17.  The 5 miles I needed to run at 8:46 was met, just that my warm up and cool down were below that average and thus dragged the overall pace down.  648 calories burned.  Not a bad workout, honestly.  The run itself was tough at first.  My legs were still smarting from the 10 miles the previous day and even with some stretching beforehand I was still feeling the burn.  But, after a bit I got into the groove.  It even turned out that I never got into zone 4 for this run.  That seemed interesting to me, because the total run was 55 minutes, and during the 10 miles, by the 43rd minute I was pretty much stuck in zone 4.  I didn’t even have to adjust the incline for this run.  If I had to guess, I would say it is because my body has at least mostly recovered and knew that I was in better shape than the first run.  I’ll be interested to see during next week’s 10 miles.

I did strength training after the run.  I am determined to get this back into my regimen 3 times a week, though I’m doing twice to start until I get readjusted.  I am also trying to get some core strength training in, but I hate doing crunches, feel pretty self conscious about doing them on the open floor, and have been told by several of the trainers that the machines are the wrong way to handle it.  So, I struggled with what I could do and I just tell myself with patience and time it will improve.  I can only hope that it’ll be less of a strain to get back into this routine.  I know that it is important to strength train, but I’m balancing the time at the gym with the time with my family and that seems more important.

Cheers!