Hooray, my running break is over! And yesterday was my 4 year runniversary! Started using C25k (Couch to 5k) to train for my first 5k 4 years ago (6/12/12). Since June of 2012 I have noticed a change in many things. Resting heart rate is usually around 45-55. Blood pressure is lower than it used to be. Cholesterol level is lower (used to be over 200), triglycerides substantially lower, "good" cholesterol has improved. Vitamin D is 51.1 and I used to have a pretty serious insufficiency. Most of this improvement is due to supplementation, but I do think time in the sun (while wearing sunscreen) has helped me tremendously. Vitamin D is a very important vitamin to keep a healthy, positive mood and state of mind . Very noticeable signs when you have a deficiency/insufficiency. Wish I would have known more about Vitamin D years ago!
Anyway, it felt great to get out today and get 4.12 miles. Plan was to start marathon training with a 4 mile run today. My pace was reasonable (9:55) but I expected to feel more sluggish as I just donated blood yesterday and had taken a week off prior to this. However, it seemed to not really matter too much. I also celebrated reaching the 2 gallon donor mark from the Red Cross. I've been trying to donate every few months when I'm feeling well. One can donate every 8 weeks but I usually don't do it that much because I feel I need an extra few weeks to recover. Also I try to line it up with my running schedule if it's possible. For instance, it takes 3 weeks (according to studies) to recover your fitness level after donating . So I try to keep that in mind. Not something you want to do a few weeks before a race. I figure if I do it a month before then I'm fine. Also my Iron level takes a while to replenish, for me that is longer than 8 weeks typically.
So, we will see if I feel well enough to keep running at about a 10/mile and if I do, that would be great for this week. I've also looked into some running calculators that look at what kind of pace a person should plan for their long runs. Found a pretty good one here: http://www.chicagoendurancesports.com/runcalc.htm
Based on my information it had some interesting thoughts for me.
My long (easy) runs should be: 11:03 - 12:25 min/mile
My tempo/pace runs should be: 9:15 min/mile
I put in the time I ran my last half in and this is what it tells me. Looking at my past training, my long runs have been about 10:30 but I find it difficult to run much slower than that as it seems to affect my form. So I need to work at getting to 11:03/mile. I believe this would be good for me as others have recommended doing this. Today I ran in between long (recommended) and tempo run pace. So that's probably on target.
Looks like there is some work to do on practicing running slower on long runs.
Found a few articles I need to read. https://runnersconnect.net/running-training-articles/wrong-long-run-pace/
http://womensrunning.competitor.com/2015/07/nyc-running-mama/an-easy-way-to-get-faster-slow-down_44089
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