This past week was our spring break. I can still run only every other day because of my bad heel, but I took advantage of my relaxed schedule to stretch out the weekday runs a little. So I managed to get 50+ miles in just four days of running:
Monday, 11.3 miles at 9:12/mile pace
Tuesday, 90 minutes on bike trainer
Wednesday, 12.3 miles at 9:16 pace
Thursday, 90 minutes on trainer
Friday, 12.6 miles at 9:06 pace
Saturday, 40 mile bike ride in 2:30.
Sunday, 14.5 miles at 8:45 pace.
I hadn’t been doing a lot of outdoor cycling during the past 5-6 weeks of cool, rainy weather, so Saturday’s ride left me a little leg-weary. I took off Sunday morning thinking dammit, I’m going to do this long run at a decent pace. It was a perfect morning, 48 degrees, calm and clear, bright full moon at the start and brilliant sunshine by the end. I was happy enough with the run, but the effort felt more like 8:20 pace than 8:45. Sigh.
I’m running a half-marathon in seven days, heel willing, and will probably run only two of the next six days. I’ll try to rest up during the next week and see what I can do in a race. Apart from my chronically bad heel, I seem to be sound and healthy.
Rtype, I love your list!
Allen1959, looks like your rebuild continues to go well. Having to lose that weight can’t be fun. I hope you can keep progressing.
Igy, best wishes on the continued success of your therapy. You seem to be handing it very well.
The discussions of shortening stride as a reason for losing speed with age have been interesting. All my running life I have believed that overstriding is one of my biggest problems and leads to a lot of injuries. No trained person has ever confirmed that self-diagnosis, which is based on two observations: (1) When running at the same pace as much taller runners (I’m 5’5”), I almost always have an equal or slower turnover; (2) Despite being quite light, I run very well down hills and very badly up hills, which I attribute to having a stride that’s too long and spends too much time off the ground. So for decades I’ve been trying to force myself to increase turnover and shorten stride, without much effect. Perhaps getting old will finally achieve the shorter stride, alas probably without the compensating increased turnover!