Saturday, January 15, 2011

When your strength becomes your weakness.

The last couple years it has been a joke in our house that I have one speed when I run, swim or bike. That speed is "ON". I can go forever at the same, consistent speed. When we run marathons, my last mile is the same pace as my first mile. Trevor says "my wife will finish between 5 hours and 5 hours and 4 minutes, no matter what the course is like". When talking about triathlons, people ask what my strength is and I always say "pacing".

I started a new training program this week, the idea is to get faster. I want to be faster. I think I am faster, I have just never pushed myself. I never do speed training, I always just run. This program has changed that. Every run has a purpose, a set speed for a set distance or time.

Today, I was to run 13 miles at a 10:27 pace. I ended up averaging 10:17...I was all over the board, I couldn't hold it steady at 10:27. I am relearning how to pace myself. Its hard to believe that I really have to work on the one thing that I though I was really good at! This will be a challenge and I enjoying it so far.

Today's run was about 55 degrees and rainy. I wore shorts and tshirt...in January. Last Saturday I ran and had to turn around because the roads were so icy, so I was thankful for the warm rain today! Trevor met me on part of my run with Buster and Maggie and we ran as a family for a little bit. I loved that. We'll see what next week brings!!

1 comment:

Keith said...

Swimming can be a really bad one for being locked into one pace. You really have to push your self to go faster. Or slower. It's probably easier to take a technique class, and you'll find you're going faster with the same effort. Ah, I guess I should say that you need to make sure the coach actually knows what they are talking about first, it's easy to get messed up.