Psalm 91:1 NKJV He who dwells in the secret place

Ditto your comment to me...also remember you are primarily training longer distances, so don't expect your shorter faster stuff to be exactly there yet as this hasn't been a big part of your program to date.

Kory - something is just not right with the above workout. Try 10x100 with 100 a very slow jog recovery (or longer if needed), first 5 as a stride, then the next five go as fast as you can. You'll need a watch that can do 0.1 second precision.

Jeff - yes, Kory has not been doing any fast intervals, but struggling to break 80 for him is just plain wrong. I am on the slow side, and I can do a workout like that averaging 65 with no prior speed work, so that is a good 1:00 per mile on Kory. He is only maybe 20 seconds per mile slower than me.

I will try this on my next Tuesday speed work out. The marathon I'm running is on September 1st so this will be a good intensity shakeout to prepare for it.

I get so tense when I'm trying to do the speed work out. Maybe I'm focusing to hard, or I'm just plain slow.

Kory - I seriously doubt your are THAT slow. My guess is that somehow your brain shuts down and refuses to drive the legs like it should.

Kory- I know what you mean about being so tense when doing speed. A few years back if you gave me a workout like 8x200 @ 30s I could do it easily; but once I was given a distance oriented workout I'd think way too much about it and blow up. Something that helped me (at least with 400 repeats) was to set my timer at half the goal time and just run as best I could to the 200m. If I made it before the watch beeped I knew I was headed for a good time. If the watched beeped before the mark, then I would just focus on hitting the last 200 as fast I needed to in order to reach the goal time. It helped me to relax and my workouts improved.

I will try this on my next Tuesday speed work out. The marathon I'm running is on September 1st so this will be a good intensity shakeout to prepare for it.

I get so tense when I'm trying to do the speed work out. Maybe I'm focusing to hard, or I'm just plain slow.

Thanks Adam ideas are very good. I really think Sasha is right about my brain shutting down to drive the legs. I know I have speed in me. When I played softball I could fly around the bases. I just need to

not be so tense and have fun with it.

Sasha, you called yourself slow, you bush-smelling hypocrite! (JUST KIDDING!)

Kory, I am under the impression from reading everyone's blog all the time that the whole brain-shutting-down thing is caused by sleep deprivation--you mentioned you had a really rough night. Don't let it get you down. Try to get as much sleep as you can these last couple weeks before your race. You're going to do so well!

Lybi - to clarify what I mean about being on the slower side. Find a 5 K race that is big enough so there are at least 19 people within a 10 second range from where I finish. We take those 19 runners and me, and after enough rest we race a quarter all out. I do not think I would finish in the top 15 in that group. A 59 second all quarter is decent for the general 30+ male population, but it is below average for a 15:37 5 K runner. So that means if I am ahead by 15 seconds in a quarter of somebody whose lactic threshold is only 20-30 seconds slower than mine per mile, something is terribly wrong with him - his ratio of all out quarter to threshold pace is off the charts. I would not call this ration bad if the threshold was 5:00 mile or faster (the speed converts well into the threshold pace) , but when the threshold is only 5:45-5:50, that is not good, the lack of speed is limiting the threshold.

Yea, I know, Sasha. I just had to tease you because you left me that big ol' suggestion that I stop thinking like a mid-pack runner (sniff) and never ever call myself slow. So I changed all my goals and vowed not to say the "s" word ever again, and then this was the first thing I read from you after that. But after I posted it, I kinda wished I had written something that was a little nicer sounding. He he. So let me say something nice to atone: you are like the father of my running--I would not have become a runner now if it weren't for you (and your sweet family). Hope that sounds nice, and not too strange.

P.S. One of these days I'll have to write a big ol' technical comment on what I mean when I say that I'm slow--but I don't think you will like it. :)

Sorry Kory, using up all your blog space. Let me just say that I think you long term goals are so inspirational. And you have a cool lookin' moustache, there.

Lybi, You can blog all you want on my site blog that's what it's there for. No need to apologize.

I need to put a different picture on this site. That's pretty much all you see is my moustache. This strider's running hat that i wear is getting old, I've wore it in all 9 of my marathon's and it falls down over my eyes. It's given me good luck.