General Aerobic run w/ 10 x 100 m strides. 4:45 am, 18°F, 75% humidity, wind 2 NW, very light snow falling with a thin but significant layer of snow on the ground. I got an earlier than usual start this morning so that I could be done in time to drive my son to seminary. He's going to have to walk tomorrow and Thursday and so I thought I'd try to be nice and give him a ride today since my run was short enough that I could manage it with a little effort. My legs felt like lead today. It's probably from my poor diet while traveling last week, my lack of adequate sleep last night, or both. I wore the yaktrax this morning because of the snow. I was going to run the strides on the track, but then I realized that the snow on the track would be too deep because the track wouldn't have been plowed at all in the last 3 days. The sidewalks got plowed yesterday and probably the day before, and so they just had last night's accumulation of snow. So I ran the strides on the sidewalk on Cresthill Lane across from the middle school. Cresthill Lane runs very slightly uphill as it heads south and I ran the strides heading south. The wind was coming from the north and there wasn't really enough wind to help me on the strides, but just enough to make me cold when I turned around and headed back in between the strides. I was slow on the strides today. I guess I just didn't have it in me today. Hey, at least I tried. I did try to run the strides with good form, and I guess that's really the point of strides.
I ran a little over 6 miles before I started the strides, and then had about a mile and a half left to make a total of 9 miles after I had done the strides. AP: 9:30. Splits for the first 6 miles: 9:27, 9:24, 9:46, 9:13, 9:29, 9:16. Pace on the strides: 7:24, 8:01, 8:04, 7:49, 7:52, 8:06, 8:07, 7:37, 7:59, 7:35. Splits after the strides: 9:51, 0:54 @ 9:37. It's a new week so it's time for a new proprioceptive cue. This week's cue is Running on Water. Here's the summary from Brain Training for Runners by Matt Fitzgerald. "Image you're running on water, and your goal is to not fall through the surface. To do this, you must overcome the squishiness of your running surface by applying maximum force to the water in minimum contact time, like a skipping stone. Try to make your feet skip across your running surface in a similar way: quickly, lightly, yet forcefully. This proprioceptive cue will teach you to stiffen your stride, minimize ground contact time, and begin the thrust phase earlier." I tried to think about this cue while I was running today and I think I did okay at first, but then I got tired and didn't do such a great job towards the end of my run. I doubled back just a bit at the end of my run and I could see from my tracks in the snow that I wasn't doing a great job of picking up my feet. However, I saw my own tracks in the snow while I was doing the strides since I went back and forth, and I was doing better then.
| 