Finally figured something out

0jeff • 19th Oct 2009 • exercise • running

For anyone that hasn’t trained for a marathon, let me tell you something:  it’s not just blindly running a bunch for 6 months and then doing a marathon.  The training programs mix things up during the week to help you out.

You might do hills to work on strength, or track work to improve speed.  One thing I have constantly struggled with is the easiest of them all – the easy run.  I know, ridiculous right?  The ‘easy’ run is the hardest one?  Here’s why…

I’m a competitive person.  It’s that simple.   Let’s say I’m supposed to do an easy 4 miles to recover from the weekly long run.  My problem is that I fixate on my fastest 4 mile time and think I have to run it in that time or less every single time I do 4 miles.  The distance doesn’t really matter.  I’m just obsessed with competing with my own times.

I even do it on my long runs.  This year I’m slower.  It happens when you slack all summer and eat too much.  The problem is that I’m still trying to run a 9-minute pace for 10 miles when I can’t even sniff that right now.

Tonight, I was finally able to complete an honest-to-God easy run just the way I’m supposed to.  I don’t think I’ve ever done one properly.  It’s not that I haven’t tried, but when I run easy for the first few miles I feel like I have to speed up on the last few.  My legs feel great right now.  They feel like they haven’t done anything and I could go out for a 10 miler and not think twice about it.  I’m interested in how things go tomorrow in the hill workout  .