Tuesday Mile repeats at LT.

Above are shots of my Garmin from this morning's run.
Mile 1- 5:24
Mile 2- 5:23
Mile 3- 5:21
Mile 4 (.97 miles)- 5:08

I have a first generation Forerunner 101 with out the download capability. That's probably a good thing for me. Today's run was done as sort of a Fartlek- the goal was to run at slightly faster than goal pace for the marathon then ease up and jog for 1/2 mile. The first 1/2 mile recovery was done in 3:12, then 3:37, then I had to walk for part of the recovery, then after the last one I was quite knackered and walked a lot. These miles were run on a trail with rolling terrain. 5 mile warm-up/ 2 mile cool down.. slightly less than 12.75 miles total.. I usually round down and try not pad my log too much. Since I did walk a bit I'll call this 12 miles. I certainly didn't feel good for these and my PE and HR were quite high. What a huge difference in running these in a 'real world' situation VS. the track. The track is so much more controlled and there were some solid rollers in these miles. The best way to run hills in a run like this is to simply hold effort up the hills and sacrifice a few seconds, then relax on the downhills and try to even it out- or get that time back. I think it is a mistake to simply hold pace up the hills particularly in a marathon race. This sets you up to push beyond your limits. In certain workouts it certainly is ok, but in a hillyish marathon you need to allow a slight pace reduction up the hills. This is partly why it is important to focus not only on uphill running strength but also on strength and economy of downhill running.

Friday track workout: Start at 6:30am at Centaurus High School. My own workout is going to be a ladder of some sort- ie: 200- 400- 600- 800- 1000-1000-800- 600-400-200 in 5:00 pace. Anyone is welcome to come and do a test or run stadium stairs or play marbles.