Been running track workouts at night when the sun goes down for a few months now. Does anyone find it hard/difficult to hit certain paces at night on the track. The effort is there just not the time.
EX. I ran 15:18 in the 5k a few weeks ago. I do some mile repeats at night and 5:25 seems like a push but when it's light outside running 800m repeat at 2:20 is far less difficult.
Anyone have this problem.
I definitely do. Plus, I can't sleep for hours after the workout.
If you can, use an indoor track. You could also run indoors on a treadmill that goes up to 12 mph for these mile repeats, though that can be awkward to decelerate into a recovery.
Done this a lot in the past. It didn't seem to affect me that much during longer reps, but I found the shorter/faster speed work more difficult.
might be shortening your stride due to depth perception
I actually do a vast majority of my workouts at night, on a track near my house. I've always run better at night than I do midday. Right now I'm on an indoor track team for my school, but during the fall when I wasn't running on the XC team, I did many mile repeats and 1k's on the track at night. Then I would try to do the same workout at noon or 2pm and I'd feel really flat. Maybe it's just mental, but I've done my best workouts at night.
Are you doing everything by yourself? I can see how having no activity in view of the track due to darkness may be mentally draining - as opposed to during daylight hours when cars / pedestrians may pass by. However, having training partners would eliminate this feeling - not to mention their encouragement / assistance during the workout helps...
kvothe wrote:
If you can, use an indoor track. You could also run indoors on a treadmill that goes up to 12 mph for these mile repeats, though that can be awkward to decelerate into a recovery.
Perhaps he could also have someone run after him with a wet blanket.
I used to love doing PM workouts
Old D2 Guy wrote:
Are you doing everything by yourself? I can see how having no activity in view of the track due to darkness may be mentally draining - as opposed to during daylight hours when cars / pedestrians may pass by. However, having training partners would eliminate this feeling - not to mention their encouragement / assistance during the workout helps...
Don't try telling this to "one man Wolfpack"
Some of my best track workouts have been when me and another runner were trying to beat the piss out of each other.
How old are you?
Is this a the sun goes down early in November, December, January so it is dark at 5 or 6 pm kind of night or a I have messed up my schedule so badly that I think it is a good idea to be starting to run at 10 pm kind of night?
localboy wrote:
might be shortening your stride due to depth perception
I have definitely found this to be true. I've done runs at night where 7:45 pace feels like about 6:15 pace, and runs during the day where 7:15 pace feels like 7:45 or so.
It also may be that your muscles are more primed to run hard earlier in the day. Not entirely sure where I read that though.