Can I just start by saying, "Wow! 80 followers!"? Seriously, when did that happen? Welcome and if I haven't stopped by yet, leave me a comment and I will be sure to.
OK, back on task. Thanks to G, and her declaration of my greatest weakness as a runner, everyone in the free world knows that I am a notoriously bad racer. I train my butt off, but when it comes to race day ... TOTAL FAIL. The problem with this (other than the obvious suckage) is that I have been using training zones based off of my PRs. That would be fine if my PRs were actually an indicative of what I can run. I started to think something was up when I was breezing through tempo workouts like they were nothing.
So, with some guidance from the wonderful and super speedy, Mel and Aron, I have finally found my proper training pace. They both said I should be pushing to keep the pace in my tempo workouts. To accomplish this, I played around with McMillan's calculator until my current long and easy runs fell into the range provided by the calculator. This then gave me a new tempo range. So I tried it out. And guess what ... I FINALLY felt like I was working to keep the pace.
Yesterday, I wanted to double check that the zones were correct, so I logged that super speedy two miles. And guess what, my time was 3 seconds slower than what the calculator predicted. Sweet, right?
And the best part is that based on these new zones, my current PRs are WAY off. It gives me something to shoot for and if I can figure out this whole racing thing, maybe I'll actually hit them ...
16 comments:
Awesome! I can't wait to hear about your super speedy races, that start with a SANE 2 miles. BTW- casual conversation with Melis Kish indicates that she has a BQr in her running group AND that her race strategy sounds like something you'd enjoy. We'll talk soon... no, maybe I'll tell you AFTER Princess Half so you don't blow up trying something new...
I love McMillians. I use it all the time. I am glad you are finding your zone and hopefully this will lead you to have super sweet race days!
McMillians is where I go, too! The cool thing is, you can keep working and upping the paces as you get better! Whoo hoo!
Wow, thank you for posting the calculator! I've never seen that before. It will totally help me and my running group. I have one member who is trying really hard to get faster and strongly feels like she can't. My goal this year is to prove her wrong.
That's awesome, I used the McMillan calculator to figure what I should be aiming for in my half. Since I've never run a half before I had no idea what my goal should be. Good luck.
YES, tempo workouts should most definitely be DIFFICULT. I'm glad you got some guidance and have some new goals to work towards!
Let's see some weet PR's this year!!
Good for you! I need help with that as well...figuring out what is a comfortbale, what is a slow, and what is my push for pace...I'm all over the place!
Sounds like a great plan!
That's awesome! I'm going to have to check out that calculator thingy. :)
McMillian is a great guide -- speeding up your Tempo runs is going to help you continue to progress and yes, reach even better PR's.
Don't you love it when other people have done the research and we can benefit?
Cool! Thanks for the link. :)
Thanks for the link! I am going to check out the calculator.
Good job on improving your time!
Yay for finding your pace! I've found that with the exception of marathon pace, McMillan is pretty accurate for me and really useful for finding training paces.
Great job finding your new and improved pace!
I also wanted to thank you for your comment...you really seem to get what I mean. It irks me, but I'm not beating myself up or anything :) ...plus, you are so right, there will always be someone faster, I can't win, so I won't try...it's me against me in this race! Thanks again.
Good luck meeting your new running goals. You sound motivated!!!
Love the calculator. Now I have no excuse to push harder in my 5K's = except for hubby's cheering/yelling and side-tracking me.
Post a Comment