Sunday 3/15/09 - Long Tempo #2/Recovery

This Sunday we are back at Shelby doing our second long tempo run.  We will run 5, 6 or 7 miles at a pace that is 35-60 seconds slower than your 3 mile TT.  (Hopefully, we'll all run in the 35-45 seconds per mile slower range...)   Remember: even if you can run faster than this, you shouldn't.  Save those really intense efforts for your races.  Jack Daniels is a great running coach who has an extremely user-friendly training guide called "Jack Daniels Running Formula."   He calls runs outside of your prescribed pace "misplaced quality" .  I think that is a great term because these runs are hard, but they don't accomplish their intended purpose... 

If you want to read more on tempo running read this previous blog   (Or better yet, buy and read Jack Daniels' book...)

Many of you are running races periodically as we prepare for the Country Music 1/2, and are curious about recovery times.  Here is a rule of thumb: take one recovery day for every 3 kilometers of racing.  So: a 5K =  2 recovery days, a 15K =  5 easy days.  A half-marathon is about 21k, so take a full week of recovery running.    What is recovery running?  Like all running, pace is relative to your fitness level, so recovery running is different for different people, but the words "really darn slow" go a long way towards describing the appropriate pace!

See you on Sunday!

Mark