Enough frivolous joy & natural beauty, on to running stuff.
My strength coach (who is not a runner, but very knowledgeable about strength training in general, and has been very enthusiastic in learning more about running and coaching runners' strength work) occasionally asks me about what my goals are for upcoming races.
And back in the day I used to get super into that stuff, setting "A" goals and "B" goals and so on down the alphabet, investing each with certain levels of meaning and import and in some sense kind of judging the whole endeavor by how far up the alphabet I managed to pull off on one random morning.
But to be honest I've kind of been dodging that question every time he asks, tossing out noncommittal responses like, "Oh, you never know what will happen, I'm just going to try to run my best," or "It doesn't really matter, I just want to feel like I ran an honest race."
Which isn't untrue; I've definitely accepted the reality that there are a LOT of things on race day that you can't control, and you can definitely work hard and do everything "right" and still not have the day you want.
I'm also more apt now to think in terms of process goals rather than outcome goals; you may not be able to control every variable on race day, but you CAN set process goals that you have a lot more control over. Time goals for me have really been out the window since before the pandemic, but I have been all over some serious process goals in the last say year or so, including but not limited to:
- Two hours a week in the gym for rehab, prehab, and lifting truly heavy shit
- Monthly massage therapy and chiro (I've just accepted that I cannot stay injury-free otherwise)
- No morning alarms unless absolutely necessary (if you didn't know, getting enough sleep is by far the most underrated performance-enhancer out there)
- Eat for performance & recovery ~90% of the time (i.e., get enough protein and carbs every day & at the right times, bump up the carbs on bigger workout days, and drink lots of water)
- Embrace the suck in hard workouts; grind through tough intervals without backing off, cutting them short, pausing for water, or making mental excuses not to work as hard as I know I should be
- Keep easy days HELLA easy, even if it means literally shuffling.
Of course, a person can still think about and imagine different possible outcomes, even if they aren't getting super invested in them as goals, per se.
So the other day when he was like, "Well, just, how fast do you think you could reasonably expect to run this 10K?"
And I kind of thought about it, and about my 21:13 5K in May, and my 1:40 half marathon in March, and how some of my harder workouts have gone lately.
And I told him, "You know, I would not be surprised if I run sub-45:00, which I haven't done in six years." I have tried very hard in recent years not to get too caught up in comparing present-day me with what six-eight-ten-years-ago me was able to do, but this was just kind of an objective assessment. Based on how things have gone this year, I think it's pretty realistic if the weather, circumstances, etc. all decide to cooperate.
Now, does that mean it will definitely happen, or that I will get bent out of shape if it doesn't? Not at all! I can't control if it happens. All I can control over the next couple of weeks is keeping up with all the process stuff above. I can make sure I'm organized and rested and have all my shit together the night before and on race morning. And once the gun goes off, it's nothing but attitude and effort.
On the other hand, it's kind of intimidating to realize I haven't run a 10K like that since 2016 (and the two I ran last year were the slowest I've run in my life! And I was really trying! 😂). So one does kind of like to get a sign from the universe like, "No really. You're not being unreasonable here."
On Tuesday I had 5:00/1:30 fartleks to do. That's a much shorter recovery than say running 5:00 vO2 max intervals on the track, so I decided to use the workout as a kind of 10K rehearsal--try to run the 5:00 intervals at 10K effort (which should be very reasonable even with only 90 seconds of rest).
And, I was very pleased to find that the first couple felt pretty comfortable at 7:12-13 pace, even into a fairly strong headwind? Like, kind of surprisingly comfortable? I felt like I was dialing in the effort level pretty well, even as each interval felt a bit tougher as one would expect (also the last two were slightly uphill, but maybe balanced by the tailwind). So I was kind of surprised to see I'd run both of those last two at sub-7 pace, and even though they were getting harder, they were still manageable, and I felt strong and not like I needed to back off the pace.
See also Friday's 12-miler, which included two miles at moderate/steady state pace (somewhere between half marathon & marathon effort) and two miles at "hard" pace. I was feeling tired so I decided to run both two-mile intervals totally by effort, without watching my pace at all. In my mind I was expecting to see maybe ~8:00ish pace for the first interval and ~7:25ish for the second, so this kind of blew my mind a little:
Again, a good workout absolutely does not guarantee anything, but this week felt like a good sign, and it also felt good to get some targeted work in at 10K effort/pace before the race. :)
~*~*~The Giant Race 10K Week 7 of 9~*~*~
Grand Total: 38.5 miles
- * 31.25 easy
* 3.25 speed
* 4 tempo/threshold
Monday 8/1: Rest
Tuesday 8/2: 1 hour strength + 6 easy. Easy running always a fun time on post-lifting legs!
Wednesday 8/3: 3 warm up, 4 x (5:00 @ 10K effort, 1:30 jog), 3 cool down = 9.25 total.
Thursday 8/4: 6 easy. Just an easy recovery jog.
Friday 8/5: 3 warm up, 2 moderate, 1 easy, 2 hard, 4 cool down = 12 total
Saturday 8/6: Camping with friends! No running but some sweet views. Please enjoy a few more:
Sunday 8/7: 5.25 easy.
Past Training Journals:
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