Today's Workout: 3 mile easy run at an 8:49 pace.
Tomorrow's Workout: REST
Saturdays RACE DAY!
I'm getting antsy to run my race. It's easier to not meet your goals when you don't tell the whole world what your goal is. Now I'm gonna feel like a loser if I fail.:) I guess that gives me some added motivation!
The esposo told me today that he's really losing motivation to workout. He was a football player, not a runner, but I convinced him to run the Swiss Days 10k with me on September 5th. That gives us roughly a month to train. He ran it last year with me a few months after I had BabyJ and vowed never to run a 10k again. He's gonna be hooked before he knows it.
Anyways, I decided to use the Runner's World SmartCoach to make a 4 week training schedule for myself. I want to try and run the race at a 7:35 pace, which I think may be stretching it because two parts are uphill and it isn't considered to be the easiest 10k. I printed out the schedule but I'm so confused why it has me running my easy and long runs at a 9:18 pace. I don't really understand how that's gonna translate to a 7:35 pace. Maybe I need to keep looking for a better schedule...If anyone out there has used SmartCoach or another short schedule with success, please let me know! I have no idea what to do.
Maybe I'll make my own schedule using the McMillan Running Calculator Marlene sent me.
5 on a Friday: SHU’s version
16 hours ago
I've heard that long & easy runs should be about 20% slower than race pace - your don't want to push yourself to hard on non-workout days.
ReplyDeleteHowever - that's mostly when training for a long distance race (I think).
That does seem a little slow for 10K training.
i agree with marlene... long/easy runs are supposed to be a good bit slower than goal pace. there are a few calculators you could double check your paces against - the macmillan one (http://www.mcmillanrunning.com/mcmillanrunningcalculator.htm) and jack daniels (http://www.runbayou.com/jackd.htm) and see what those give you for your easy/long pace?
ReplyDeleteGOOD LUCK TODAY!!!
All I can say is I used the 16-week smart coach program recently, ran all of the runs faster than prescribed, but still ran slightly slower than the smart coach predicted time on race day, and I definitely wasn't slacking on that day!
ReplyDeleteI know almost all the running coaches tell you NOT to run faster than prescribed, maybe I should have listened, it is just counter-intuitive, as I'm sure you'd agree.
If you read the background info on the smart coach by Amby Burfoot, it does say that you can lie to it and give it a faster recent race time if you want it to output a certain race goal time, although I would imagine this also increases your risk for injury.
I'm sorry I didn't see this post until long after your race was over. Overall I find that the smart coach took all the fun out of running for me, as I don't like to run long distances, however with that said I plan to use it once a year anyhow, as it does give you more confidence in the shorter races to have that base of longer runs under you, and my race times DID improve, even if less so than I'd hoped.