sometimes you fly, sometimes you crawl
Isn’t it crazy how different each run can be? How one day you can love running and feel like you can run at top speed forever, and other days you want to throw in the towel after two minutes? I suppose one of the good things about running is that some runs will always be hard…that’s what makes it worth it, right? I mean, don’t get wrong…I love a solid twenty miler where I’m cruising and life feels dandy. But that speed work that makes you huff and puff and feel like you’re working definitely helps to keep things real.
That being said, in the past two weeks I’ve experienced two different speed workouts that theoretically should have been hard yet attainable…on the first one, I felt like I was on top of world. (Flashback to The Juliana Theory…anyone?) On the second, everything felt like I couldn’t hold pace at all. Nothing was terribly different from week to week, yet one was very uplifting and confidence building, and the next made me truly wonder if even trying for 3:10 is a silly idea.
flying
Megan had posted about a workout she did recently, and I liked the idea of it so I wanted to replicate it. The idea was three miles at marathon pace, then going into three miles at 15-ish seconds under marathon pace. If you’ve ever read any of my race reports, you would know that I never go out at pace…I always go out too fast. And then I die at the end. It’s a problem, I’m well aware. So this time around I think it’s important to work on understanding what marathon pace feels like so my legs get used to the idea and we don’t bust out those first miles in Hopkinton at sub-7s or something equally crazy.
For a 3:10 marathon, an even paced marathon would require running 7:16 miles. 26.2 times. Honestly, that kind of freaks me out. However, doing some pace work helps me realize that it’s not that fast. It’s just a matter of hanging on. However, I will have you know that I’m bad at running tangents, so I figure learning to keep pace somewhere between 7:10-7:15 would be best. (Maybe I’m wrong? Someone yell at me…)
So anyway, I headed out to Central Park with a mile warm-up and then headed into some marathon pace miles. The first three? 7:06, 7:03, 7:05. Oops? I need my own version of someone who run will next to me and say, “You can run 7:03 if you want, but I’ll be right back here running 7:12’s.” a la when I paced Meggie back in the day. These miles didn’t feel super fast, so I was happy with that fact, although I realize that three miles and 26 miles are very, very different. But I was happy with it.
Once the first three miles were up, I immediately shifted gears and moved into some faster miles. I wasn’t totally sure if I should aim for a 6:55 mile or truly drop 15 seconds off what I had been running, but the fourth mile came through in 6:56. That’s nice. Feels good. The next two miles? 6:45. 6:34. You know what? It felt awesome. Well, that last bit didn’t feel amazing, but hitting those paces weren’t a problem at all. I’m a fan. I finished this workout feeling confident in my ability to go for it on Marathon Monday and run 3:10. A confidence boost is definitely awesome…
Overall pace for the tempo was 6:55. That’s nice.
crawling
After that workout last week, I had high hopes for my speed work today. I decided on 800’s in order to my legs moving a little bit faster…I’ve never been a speedster and getting my legs go to fast is definitely something I struggle with, but I was ready to take it on. Since I’m still coming back to speed work, 6 x 800 with full active recovery sounded like a good idea.
Per Mr. McMillan, my pace for the 800’s should be 2:58-3:07. McMillan…you’re on. But not until a two mile warm-up. Done and done, it’s windy out here, but let’s do this…
First and second repeats weren’t too bad, clocking in at 3:00 for each one. Felt fast, but nothing crazy. Gotta love fresh legs. The third 800 was a little less fabulous…3:10, but it was a lot of uphill sooo I guess that’s not so bad. Fourth repeat? I want to die. I’ve been having some minor GI issues lately (I don’t want to talk about it, especially if you’re going to tell me to cut down on the coffee…I go back to night shift in a week, okay?), and my tummy was a rumbling. Luckily I saved myself from hurling on the attractive Columbia track team that was passing by, but I did take a mini break on the side of the road to prevent myself from doing so. Minus that break, the repeat was in 3:01. Not sure if that really counts.
After that little adventure, I wasn’t ready for two more. The saving grace was that the fifth one was more downhill-ish, but I survived in 3:05. The last one clocked in at 3:09, and I will admit that I couldn’t have gone faster at all.
So? 3:00, 3:00, 3:10, 3:01, 3:05, 3:09. That doesn’t look so bad. At all. But I cannot even begin to tell you how horrible they felt! My form felt awful, as if I was trying to sprint the entire time. An 800 should definitely not feel like sprint, and the fact that my legs had no desire to turn over any faster was a bit discouraging.
At least the cool down was nice. Ten miles on the day, that’s fun.
what happened??
I wish I could pinpoint one workout felt so much better than the other, other than the fact that that’s just how it works. Mentally the second one was much more challenging, which perhaps was the main problem. I couldn’t get into a zone and distracting myself worked for about eight seconds at a time. I know the hard runs make you stronger and that my times were still adequate, but it’s still a bit discouraging. Hoping next week’s workout is a little bit better!
Any tips??
Apologies for the wordiness of the post, sometimes I like to be able to go back and read about how my workouts went. Anyway…how do you get through tough workouts? Any mental distractions you have? Mantras that you use? Nothing was working today…
bad workouts happen to good runners all the time:) I just try to give myself credit for being out there in the first place. My mantra of choice is ‘this shouldn’t be easy.’
Also,I don’t think the 800 is the best indicator of marathon performance, but for Yasso you’re right on pace anyway!
I don’t think you can avoid having bad days or harder days. I think the key is to stay as mentally in it as you can. For me, I like to revert to phrases in songs that have a positive vibe and I just keep on singing them in my head until my attitude changes or the run ends! This past weekend I used part of Pink’s song “change the voices in your head make them like you instead” and a few others! Good luck and happy running! You are doing a great job!!!!
Oh man, 6×800 is my favorite speed workout! They are BRUTAL, yes, but I love finishing that last repeat knowing I’ve EARNED a post-run beer. And knowing I put some solid speedwork in the bank.
I guess I don’t have any real advice about getting through a tough workout. There are days when things seem really hard and I use that as motivation; like if I can gut out the workout in front of me, race day will be cake. Sometimes that really helps and turns my bad workout into a great one. And, of course, some days are just bad workouts. In that case, I let it go and on my next run, remind myself “I am not my last run; I am the sum of all my hard work.”
I feel you! I will never understand why some runs feel amazing and others feel just absolutely craptastic. But as long as we know that it happens with running, i think it’s ok. Even though the 800s were hard, I bet you’ll have an awesome workout because of them in a few weeks! And truth: I’ve never run 800s because they scare me. I usually swear at myself a lot during tough workouts to get me through them… sometimes it works.
Just keep loggin miles! you can do it! you are fit–and running great!
Hey there…so you are a bajillion times faster than me but I can still relate! Unfortunately< i think sometimes you just have to accept those days and move on. It sucks because sometimes there is NO reason for it! I get through them by envisioning how awesome I will feel later but they are definitely discouraging. Hope the next one goes better!
NICE JOB on the 6 miler– that’s great! & one of my have CPTC workouts. But I totally feel ya on the ups and downs. Sadly, I don’t know how to combat them. The body has ons and offs and it’s often totally unpredictable! I try to take advantage of the good days by pushing it, and then keep the bad ones in perspective– no reason to freak out or get down on yourself. They come and go, and all you can do is cross your fingers and keep training hard so the good days come more frequently than the bad.
PS Boooo don’t go back to night shift
I don’t know what you mean “crawling” because that looks speedy to me!! But I know what you mean. I ran a tempo run on Monday and my legs were pooped. I was supposed to do a track workout last night, but it just wasn’t going to happen. A slow run was all I could manage because my legs felt like lead. Take 2 is tonight.
Sometimes you just have an off day. I wouldn’t worry about it – on to the next one!
(I remember doing that tempo when I lived in NYC and trained with those girls…it was a fun one!)
I don’t think this has anything to do with “bad” or “good” days. These are two very different types of workouts that challenge different systems in their own way.
1. Flying
You seem to run very comfortably at 7:40, so when dropping 30s off that you’re still somewhat aerobic, and only borrow a little from your anaerobic capacity. At 7:10 you are barely “working” and could probably hang on for about 2 hours. At 6:50 and under, the proportion of fast twitch fiber you’re using is larger, but you get that nice “boost” that feels like, a little like the NOS in the Fast and Furious movie. This will last 3-5 miles. So that workout is pretty good, but not so challenging for you. A 10 miler at 7:00 would challenge your strength better, and a 6 miler at 6:40 would challenge your capacity to metabolize lactate.
2. Crawling
You spend a lot of time running purely aerobically, at 7:40 to 8:10+ and have probably become very proficient in that range. Mechanically but also in terms of economy. You have probably spent a lot less time working in oxygen debt, which becomes severe for you under 6:10 or so. So that challenging 6 x 800 makes sense and you shouldn’t be surprised. Think about that loss of form: I’ve been there, it’s because your neuromuscular system has no idea what’s going on, you’re essentially guess-working the repeats. For someone of your talent (sub 3:20 marathon), 6:00 pace for 1/2 mile repeats is an excellent use of your training time, but you just haven’t practiced that pace often.
3. My suggestions
- Start by doing some fartleks or pickups to allow your body to learn about faster paces
- Start doing some progressive tempo runs, maybe starting at 8:30, and dropping 30″ per mile until you run the last two in 7:00 and 6:30, with the last 1/2 mile near 6:10
Disclaimer: I am not a coach nor do I have a degree in medicine. I have the reverse problem that you have: based on my 5k/10k/half I should be able to run sub 3:10, yet I am far from it because I don’t have the huge aerobic base you have but I can run very hard anaerobically…
I realize this is an extremely long comment
Good luck!
I have no tips but just coming out of marathon training I can tell you I experienced the exact same thing a couple of times. I was able to make one correlation and that was that I hadn’t eaten anything prior to both of those bad speed workouts. I feel you though, it is strange how much your confidence can rise and fall from workout to workout in marathon training! Good luck!
This post makes me feel better about my bad days, cause it makes me feel like they are normal, which they are! We all have bad days. I hang onto the good days and put them on a pedestal and try to make every workout that great. But isn’t that sort of the point? If you didn’t push through the hard days, then you’d never get better? We have to have the bad days to earn the good days.
I don’t have any speedstar tips for you since I run 800s at a 7:30 pace and feel near death, but I LOVE the juliana theory and am so excited you mentioned them! I run to “into the dark” all the time!
AWESOME JOB.
And, fyi, that workout you ran with me – one of my fave workouts EVER. “You can run 7:40s all you run, but I’ll be back here running 8:12s….” or “you’re so fast you shocked me!”
I just remind myself that, when I played tennis, some days I felt awesome and like I couldn’t miss and others like I couldn’t hit the side of a bar. A lot of times, there was no rhyme or reason to it either. I just had to do the best with what I had that day. There will be ups and downs with anything (nursing, medicine, running, etc…)
GET AFTER THAT 3:10!!!
I wish I knew why some workouts felt better than others. I think about this often. I agree with the above commenter that said the 800′s felt really difficult because your body isn’t used to the anaerobic pace. Perhaps it will get easier over the next 3 months? Maybe you can try it again in a month or so and compare!