A.M. Interesting workout today. Total of 21 miles with two tempos. One after a short warmup, the other towards the end. The first being the Gerry Lindgren kind, the second end of the marathon kind. Warmup - 2.62 miles in 20:50. Gerry Lindgren tempo: First quarter in 76. Official prediction - 5:10 for the mile, 27:50 for 5 miles. Subsequent quarters: 76, 79, 82 - 5:13 at the mile, 3 seconds off the prediction on the slow side. HR peaked at 163 around 0.6 then dropped to 160 by the end of the mile. The first half mile felt more sustainable, but then I could not sustain it.
Second mile: 83, 84, 86, 86 - 5:39. HR at 159-160. Third mile: 86, 86 (13:44 at the turnaround), 87, 86 - 5:45. HR drops to 157. Not for the lack of trying, though. Mile 4: 87, 84, 87, 87 - 5:45. I decided to try something new. Attempt a surge to see to what extent this overrides neural fatigue. Could do it for a quarter, but could not sustain it. On the positive side, I was back to pre-surge pace post-surge. So perhaps this is a good strategy - I just bought myself a couple of seconds for free. HR climbed to 160 during the surge, then went back to 158 afterwards.
Mile 5: 86, 85, 84, 81 - 5:36. Was able to get HR above 160, and to as high as 166 on the last quarter. Total time was 27:58, last 2.5 in 14:14. Much better than on Wednesday. Jogged 6.5 miles in 51:41. Met Larry Lawrence and Marie Gluhn (Hodson), ran with them for most of it. Larry back in his youth was fast - 3:58 mile. Then did another 5 mile tempo. I did not plan to make it 5, it kind of happened on accident. I only wanted to go 3, but then realized I started it too early, so I figured I'd go more. Then it also took me forever to get up to speed on those twists and turns, and the bridges, so I needed to go the whole 5 to hit a sub-6:00 average. Ran 29:58, last mile in 5:51. It got warmer, but not too bad. Cooled down 1.38 miles - total of 21 for the run.
Observations - not a whole lot of difference between the last 3 miles of the Gerry Lindgren portion, and the end of the run portion except for some fuzzy head. So in other words, it appears so far that I can simulate the end of the marathon minus the fuzzy head by running hard in the first mile and not stopping, just tempoing through. With proper focus I can run through the fuzzy head as fast as 5:30-5:40 pace on a good day. Fuzzy head in and of itself does not cause the slow down, there is something else that is involved, and I can get that something else to show its ugly head in the Gerry Lindgren tempo. So I will call that a small victory - I know how to make the dragon stick his head out. Now I just need a sword to chop it off. P.M. Went to Michelle's house to watch the womens Olympics marathon. Turned out we were the only ones there. Ran there with the kids. 1 mile with Julia in 10:34, then 1.5 with Jenny in 12:40, and another 0.5 with Benjamin to make the total time for 2 miles 16:39. Kids did very well at a higher elevation and with the hills (6000 feet). T4 Racer - 431.13 miles.
| 