Recently I have been trying to increase my weekly mileage by increasing the distance of my mid-week runs. My long runs are usually done Saturday mornings in San Francisco with my training group; while my mid-week runs are typically 3-5 miles a couple times a week.
The last month or so, I have been increasing those to 8-10 miles. It has taken some getting used to, or should I say IS STILL taking some getting used to. But I did find something interesting on my last two runs which were a week apart. Let me know what you see:
2/27
Distance: 10.09 mi.
Time: 1:34:51
Calories Burned: 1388
3/4
Distance: 10.01 mi.
Time: 1:33:58
Calories Burned: 1395
Those are pretty much identical. Here is the weird thing, this is how I ran it and how I felt:
2/27
Pace: run a mile, walk a minute, repeat.
I felt o.k. the whole way until around mile 7 when my legs started to feel heavy. I walked more the last few miles and felt fatigued.
3/4
Pace: run 2 miles, walk a minute, repeat.
I felt really good the entire way and although I was starting to get tired, it didn't come until late in mile 8 and I was able to run through it finishing strong and feeling good.
After I finished the run on 3/4, I was thinking I was easily 4-5 minutes faster than last week and anxious to check my times on the Garmin and see how much I had improved... I was shocked to see that they were almost identical considering how different each run felt.
My race pace is typically 10 min. miles and I've been working hard to bring that down, so having sub 9:30 min miles for 10 miles is a plus, which both were. Even though the latter run felt much better, it still remained almost identical. I guess there are points for consistency, right?
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