5 miles at the track staying strictly between 9:30 and 10:00 miles. Was planning to do 6, but felt a small ache and cut it short. Nothing to worry about, though: medial ankle and foot a little tight afterwards, but basically good. This is exciting.
At that pace I could also pay more attention to running form: when it was really good I had to slow down all over again, with more or less the same expenditure of effort. This reinforces a thought I had yesterday on the elliptical trainer, to wit, I've been going way too fast. On every run I would always come out blazing, and basically do an LT/tempo or even anaerobic workout every time. When I was at three or four days a week that was more or less OK, though it may have built too much leg muscle too fast and contributed to the foot problems, as well as retarding CV development. But it was totally unsustainable at higher rates of activity. Interestingly, the habit carried over when I was confined to the gym, where I would crank the resistance up and habitually work out at 80-90% of max HR--as if that was "better." Not.
So a toast to more thoughtful training. Didn't get as far in 45 minutes as I usually would in the past, but it felt just as good. One tempo a week is plenty. | 