Saturday Long Run (10 miles - 1:19:39 - 7:58 min/mi)

Mental Toughness

Woohoo! Today's run might've been my longest, fastest ever negative split run. I ran 10 miles in 1:19:39 a 7:58 min/mi average pace. I ran 7.5 mph (8:00 min/mi) for the majority of the time, but since I planned on walking for a minute at the 6 mile mark I ran a bit faster (8 mph) at 5.75 miles. I slowed down to 4 mph to drank some water and ate a few fruit snacks and got back to running in a bit over a minute. I had serious time to make up in order to get my negative split. I finished 8 miles in around 62:30 minutes. I had to pick up the pace. I increased the pace one tenth of a mph every quarter mile until the last mile when I started running 8 mph and I finished running at 8.3 mph.

My training thus far has not had many negative splits. I negative splitted by a mere 21 seconds, but at that pace I would've been proud to gut it out. I used the Runner's World training predictor to calculate my paces and see my predicted finish times based on my most recent race performance. My 3:58:23 marathon performance proclaimed that I would get a 1:25:53 10 mile race result. I did not think that was right so I put that thought into my training today.

My scheduled workout today was to run 10 miles at 80% of my maximum heart rate. Um... what a max heart rate you say? Well it is a tool used to help athletes target a maximum efficiency from a workout and it is calculated using a variety of fancy formulas, such as 220 - (age * .8). Other than that I know that you typically want to train at 60 - 70% of your maximum heart rate most of the time and attempt to improve your conditioning by training at your 80% max heart rate (also known as the VO2 max) once or twice a week.

That said, I have no idea what my max heart rate is. I don't even know what my resting heart rate is. I know that I did not want continuously attempt to achieve arbitrary levels of intensity. I have no idea how fast I should expect to run but I no that I've never run to the level that I puked. So, theoretically I can go a bit harder. All this coincides with the article read on the mental side of running in the March Runner's World where Kara Goucher saw improvements when challenged to get rid of self defeating thoughts by sports psychologist Dr. Darren Treasure. Of the many takeaways I got from the article I got the affirmation word to use when things get tough, "Fighter." Another thing is that when you want to get better or win in the face of competition you have got to go some places that other people and even yourself fear. You have got to take them into deep water. I gonna have to leave the kiddie pool soon.