Monday, August 31, 2009

Ruling All Sorts of Your Face

I was worried that my mistakenly too fast eight-mile race pace tempo on Saturday would hurt my 16-miler on Sunday. Nope, just back to back negative splits that totally kicked your teeth in.

I didn't mean to run so fast on Saturday. I was aiming to negative split the second half after running at 9:10 mile pace during the first four miles. After the first mile, I promised myself I would practice not starting too fast. I eased up a bit, but my second mile was still too fast. In fact, the only mile that was at pace was the third mile, which is almost all uphill and steeply so for the final half of that mile.

I knew I would have to kill it on the way back to negative split. In doing so, I logged what may have been my fastest mile on Sand Run at 7:53. I finished the second half of the run two minutes faster than the first.

[Drunkard's note: I am purposefully ignoring the potential problem of not being able to recognize my proper pace.]

Despite my legs feeling pretty good on Sunday, I was worried that those too fast miles the day before would catch up to me in short order. I decided to take it easy for the first 10 miles and attempt a negative split by pretending the final six miles were the final 10-K of the marathon.

I was loping along at about 10-10:30 per mile before picking up the pace. I eased my pace to 9:44 for the 10th mile and then ratcheted down to 9:15 and stuck between that and 8:58 until the last mile when I decided to flame out at 8:30. My second half split was more than six minutes faster than the first half.

This is my last buildup week before Akron. My mileage will peak at 43 miles with Sunday's 20-miler. Next week is the Buckeye Half Marathon, and after that I just need to stay healthy until Sept. 26. The days are just packed.

8 comments:

The Sean said...

rock and roll. those days are great confidence builders. now you can focus on pace knowing you can blow the doors off when you need to!

Ian said...

I'm thinking I'm going to be disappointed by your race day performance.

B.o.B. said...

well done sir.

Mike Antonucci said...

I think you're in perfect position. Your speedwork is excellent, and you've proven you can start slow and pick it up at the end.

The final task is what you mentioned: those middle miles that you'll have to run right at your target pace. But what else is taper time for?

Stay healthy and it's a lock.

joyRuN said...

Damn, you've been running really well!

mr loser said...

Fantastic 2nd half split, keep it up.

Spike said...

two sweet negative split runs back-to-back, awesome work. Seems like you are making Hal's program work well for you!

Aileen said...

Amazing! I've got a 20 miler this weekend too, so I'll keep my toes crossed for you.