Back to basics

This morning, I was running around the house trying to find my Garmin.  I couldn't find it to save my life.  Then, I remembered I had the Strands app on my phone.  It's funny how I rely on a device to get through my runs, but it's like addicting to be able to know exactly how fast I'm going and how far I've gone, lol.  I decided I was going to take things nice and slow today.  I have been focusing on running my runs faster overall, even my long runs, but I don't really think this has really been helping me much.  I mean, last year I trained at much slower paces and ran the Distance Run faster.  The big difference was that I alternated speedwork with long tempo-style runs every other week.  It seemed like that one day per week of faster running was all it took.  So, I slowed it down today.  I mean, the whole point of a long run is to build endurance and to teach your body how to store glycogen.  If you run it at a fast pace, you're not reaping the benefits of what a long slow run is really supposed to do.

Because of this slow pace, I felt amazing the whole run.  That's another thing about the long slow run.  When you finish, you're not supposed to be dead.  You're supposed to feel as if you could keep going.  That's a nice feeling to have after you have just run 2 hours.  When you feel good during a run like that, you actually enjoy yourself.  You feel good about yourself and what you are doing.  You are breathing the fresh air, taking in the beautiful surroundings, and thinking about life.  I had a nice run today.  It was what a long run should be.

This is a big reason I have decided not to run a full marathon this fall.  I have had such anxiety just thinking about the very long runs that were on my training plan leading up to Nov 7.  I have had anxiety about running 26 miles, period.  I just don't have the time to or desire to run an 18 mile training run.  Right now, that just seems to take the enjoyment out of running when I think about it.  On the other hand, I really really like the half marathon distance.  It's challenging, but not too challenging, and it's not overwhelming.  I can keep my long runs under 15 miles, run about 30 miles per week, and be a happy person.

I revised my whole training plan.  I was just looking around on the RW website, and found a detailed Ryan Hall half marathon training plan.  After looking over it and various other plans, I decided to just go with it.  It gives me some speedwork once per week, and a tempo run once per week.  I really missed speedwork, so I'm actually really excited to start on this plan this week.  I would like to finish a half in 2:10, which is a 9:56 min/mile pace.  This will be my goal for the Nov 7 Marshall Half Marathon.