Recovery run #1.
5:13 am, 43°F, 23% humidity, wind 6 S, as a huge yellow full moon slipped below the western horizon.
AP: 10:18. Splits: 10:18, 10:27, 10:35, 10:18, 10:13, 10:02.
It was not hard for me to keep it slow today. My legs were kind of heavy.
I've got to do a 4 mile run later today, just like last Monday. I'm going to try to make it into the office today and run from work at lunch time. Since several of you asked about my double last Monday, I thought I'd tell you what Pfitzinger says about why it's in the schedule:
"In these schedules, doubles are called for only on the occasional recovery day, with a total of 10 miles for the day. On these days, your recovery will be enhanced by doing a 6-miler and a 4-miler rather than putting in one 10-mile run. Instead of making you more tired, splitting your mileage like this on easy days will speed your recovery because each run will increase blood flow to your muscles yet take little out of you."
I forgot to look up the next proprioceptive cue before this run, so I just occasionally thought about last week's Driving the Thigh cue. In any case, this week's cue is Floppy Feet. Here's the description from Brain Training for Runners by Matt Fitzgerald:
"The human foot contains twenty-seven bones and dozens of muscles and ligaments. This complex structure enables the foot to deform in an intricate, wavelike pattern while it is in contact with the ground during running. Unfortunately, shoes greatly restrict this natural movement. You can get a lot of it back by wearing a running shoe that allows greater freedom of foot movement, such as the Nike Free. You can get even more back by concentrating on running with relaxed, "floppy" feet while running. When practicing this cue, continue to strike the ground forcefully with your feet, but use the muscles of your upper leg to generate this force while keeping your foot relaxed, enabling it to absorb and transfer impact forces in a way that will minimize stress on specific tissues and increase the amount of free elastic energy you are able to store and reuse."
This sounds like kind of a tricky cue to do. I'll have to give it a go on my 4-miler later today.
Recovery run #2.
12:01 pm, 68°F, 13% humidity, winds calm, partly cloudy.
AP: 10:05. Splits: 10:31, 10:26, 9:44, 9:39.
Well, I did it. I had lead legs and felt slow. During these slow recovery runs, I sometimes feel like I'll never be able to run fast again. But I remember that I was slow and sluggish during both recovery runs last Monday, so I have hope that I will be able to run my normal pace tomorrow. And I did get going by the end of this second run today.
I ran in to a coworker that I am acquainted with in the locker room when I was getting ready to run. Then I crossed paths with her out on the street about half-way through my run. She was walking. And then I passed her on the hill leading up to the office at the very end of my run. My office is in kind of a small business park, and I saw a handful of other people out walking and a couple of runners. I'm sure they all work nearby and were out on their lunch breaks.
I tried to relax my feet per the Floppy Feet cue, but I don't know how successful I was. It's hard to relax your feet when you're running.
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