Sunday 2/1/09 - Time Trial / Yoga Details
"What pace should I run during the 1/2 marathon?" "Do you think I can run 8 minutes per mile?"
"How fast should I run during my training runs?"
These are questions that I often receive and the answer is "Who knows??" These questions are completely abstract ...until that runner can give me a recent running performance by which to make a judgement. For example, if someone can give me a 5K or 10K race time - then I can estimate (and they are only that - estimates) their 1/2 marathon ability, and I can tell them how fast to run during their training. These estimates are not guarantees, but it's much better than just taking a shot in the dark.
That is why we are doing a hard 3 mile run this week. This run will be a benchmark by which we can plan our future runs, estimate our 1/2 marathon ability and evaluate our progress. (We'll perform another hard 3-mile run in March.)
Logistics - all the runs will be on the greenway since every 1/2 mile is marked:
Novice: Warm-up out to the 1 mile marker - Run hard out to the 2 mile marker and back. Catch your breath and then jog for about 5 minutes more.
Intermediate: Jog out to the 2 mile marker - Run hard out to the 2.5 - then turn around and head back. Catch your breath and jog for about 5 minutes more.
Advanced: Jog out to the 3 mile marker - turn around and run hard back. Cool down for about 10 minutes.
Side Note: Write this time down! This is one reason I gave you guys training logs. Keep track of these hard runs, so you can monitor your progress. We will also use this time to establish a training pace for next week.
Grab a snack to eat, and then we are all invited to head over to Kali Yuga Yoga for the intro to yoga class. Here are the details from Leah: