Start time: 01/04/06, 6:30pm
Location: W&OD Trail
Distance: 4 miles
Run:Walk ratio: 5.5:1
Average pace: 11:04min/mile
I’d talked with Julie about shifting the run:walk ratio up to a 6:1 with the New Year, and she agreed to give a 5.5:1 shift a try on Wednesday. Since the past couple of runs I’ve done with her have averaged between 11:15 and 11:40min/miles, I was curious to see how just the 30-second addition would do. It’s a little hard to say but I think it helped a bit; 11:03, 11:04, 11:23, 10:44 for the splits. I’m curious what a fifth mile would’ve meant for mile #4–back up to 11 or down towards 11:30?
Either way, a faster pace certainly doesn’t bother me; when most of the group was gasping and groaning last Saturday I still felt really good. Now that Julie’s been back out on the trail regularly for a month hopefully everything’ll start really coming back for her.
I have yet to run yet this year. In fact it’s been almost 2 weeks! Yeah, I am doing a great job with my Knoxville Marathon training!
Do you think that you will move up in pace groups this year? Or perhaps coach one of the slower pace groups. Obviously, given the weight you lost, the experience you’ve gain and the speed work you did for last year’s MCM you could move up in pace group. In my coaching opinion, I believe that you could train at my pace for marathons. It wouldn’t be easy for the first six weeks, but I think that in all of your distances less than the 1/2 marathon that you can switch from a Run/Walk to just a complete run.
Barring disaster I think I will indeed shift up in pacegroups this year–the only real question is which one I land in. Right now I’m thinking it may well be the 9:30 group, which would mean running the 3-miler at a “nice, easy pace” of between 8:01 and 8:30min/miles. But there’s a lot of time between now and then, especially if Coach Rick starts his speed training sessions back up as promised. The groups do go up to 8:30, though, so anything is possible.
Right now I’m thinking I’ll try flat-out running all of the St. Patrick’s Day 10K to see what will happen; I’ve done it with 5Ks and vast portions of a 10K, but my one attempt to do so in the past made me have to shift over to a r:w pattern after the halfway point. It’s been long enough since then, though, that it’s well worth giving it another stab. The big thing is just learning how to better pace myself early on so that I don’t burn out around mile 4.5!