Chad's Runs

10 fairly uneventful marathon pace miles. I ran south into Saratoga Springs again only I ran on the street instead of the 1/2 mile or so section of trail where I ran into the skunk. I don't want to go through that again. I've had the skunk shoes outside for 4 or 5 days now and they still stink. I ran in them today and the stink didn't transfer to my socks.  I don't know when or if I'll be able to bring them back inside.

10 miles in the early morning. It was beautiful weather after last nights thunder storm. I turned on my phone metronome. After a warm up I set it at 174 and was surprised that I could run relaxed at that cadence. I ran 5 miles there and then decided to bump it up just two steps per minute to 176 for the last three.  I only made it 1 mile through mile 8 at that cadence.  It's amazing that just 2 steps per minute makes that much difference, but I think 174 a few months ago would be next to impossible.  How important is all this cadence work?  My theory is that if I do speed work and make big improvements in speed but with bad form I won't be able to sustain that speed for any extended distance.

I saw another skunk today. There was more room between us this time and I didn't seem to bother him much, he bothered me however and I booked it past him. I set the metronome at 170, down from yesterdays 174 to take it a little easier than yesterday, however, I don't know if that actually results in less effort.  I'm surprised with how little cadence has with speed.  Just today my splits on miles 3-10 are 8:47, 8:28, 8:29, 8:32, 8:37, 8:17, 8:24, 8:14.  There is more than 30 seconds difference on mile 3 to mile 10 and the cadence was exactly the same.  Yesterday's splits at the 174 cadence (which feels very different by the way) are a little slower but I was intentionally trying to relax and hold back.  I don't know what I'm doing.