Saturday, June 30, 2007

Rut is in the air

The last couple of weeks have been rather tough for me. It has been tough in the sense that I am having a hard time dealing with this sabbatical. It has been hard to adjust, even after so many months. If it weren’t because of ‘MY’ running, I would go insane. Literally.

Last week I was able to chain seven consecutive days of running. Now, that fact alone is not remarkable; what is remarkable is that I logged 70 miles. Yes. You read right, SEVENTY. The most I had run prior to this seven-day stretch was 55 miles. Not too bad, huh? What’s more important, I am injury free. Knock on wood. However, not everything is rosy. There is one side effect: I can’t seem to run fast. I seem to struggle to pick up the pace.

For example: Today I ran three miles in what felt MP at a snail pace of 23:01, or 7:40 mpm. Fortunately, the next three miles were clocked in 21:27, or 7:09 pace. That’s not too bad you say… It is bad when early last year I was able to run nine miles at 7:05 pace [mind you, in a flatter route] with the effort of today’s 7:40s. I’m sure that my lack of speed-dork has something to do with this slugfest; I’ll also blame the elevation, which is in the 1800s.

So what? It is time face the music. It is time to reassess my sub-3:10 goal. I feel that a sub-3:20 is more feasible. And a sub 3:15 should be a cinch if I continue to run the volume I am running. Throw in some quality work-outs and I am in business. Why set myself up for defeat when my recent training runs suggest I CANNOT sustain that 7:15 pace I want to race in the CIM? It is one thing to WANT to run 7:15s and another to be ABLE to maintain such pace.

Yes, I know. I am a certifiable WUSS.


Finally, here’s a picture of the MOAH. Now you know why I avoid it during my training runs and why I walked it all FOUR times during the Boston satellite marathon last April. Incidentally, all participants got a GENUINE 2007 Boston Marathon finisher’s medal; is that cool, or what? AND, we also got an official jacket [with the John Hancock signature and all]… from the year 2005, but it was brand new. Thanks to those folks from the BAA; those guys are awesome.

1 comment:

Love2Run said...

It's a long way to CIM and you at least picked a decent course with a net downhill. I've got the same issues with hoped for paces but we gotta stretch to reach our goals.