Another Threshold in the Bank

Humpf.

Oh yeah.

Right.

Lactate Threshold runs suck.

Yesterday we had planned on a 6 mile run with 3 of those miles at an LT pace. We had done something similar 2 weeks ago when we did 5 miles with 2 at threshold. All of these LTs are just "bonuses" because the true marathon training program doesn't really start for a few weeks...so an official LT run doesn't happen until a few weeks after that.

Look at me making excused. I'm lame.

Anyways, we started out for the LT run and felt ok. Mile 1 was good at an 8:40 pace, but as usually I got too fast too quickly. The miles broke down like this

1. 8:40
2. 8:19
3. 7:30
4. 7:45
5. 7:51
6. 10:29 (walked for 0.1 & stopped for water at about 0.5 miles)

I am happy that all the LT miles were under 7:55, but when I checked with McMillian I realized that these need to be between 7:28 - 7:47 so the last one was about 5 seconds slow which is frustrating. We were directly into the wind for the last two LT miles so that could have had something to do with it. I would much rather have those LT miles reversed, starting a bit slower and speeding up as the time goes by, but I would also like mile 2 to be more around the 8:40 pace. I think if I could slow that down, when I picked up the pace I would pick up the same percentage as always, but since I would be slower I would be doing the LT mile slower. Does that make any sense. When the LT miles start, I kick it faster, but if I was starting a bit slower I would kick to about a 7:40 pace I am thinking. Any-ways!

I am not worried about that last mile because I was so dehydrated so we had to stop and drink water which I didn't do the last time I did this.

Jason did point out (which was also pointed out in the Pfitz book) that our weekend runs had been much faster than they normally would have been. We had three 6 mile runs, none of which were recovery, one of which was at marathon pace and the other one was below our "easy" run pace. The book warns about doing long runs too fast because you legs would be burned out for the workouts during the week. I realize that I didn't do a "long run" per say, but I still had 18 total miles, all of which were faster than I will normally do weekend runs.

So ok then.

The good news is that I'm not totally burned out today and am looking forward to our 5 mile recovery run. I am retiring my old shoes because I am also saying that dead shoes had something to do with slow legs (look at me....I just keep adding on the excused don't I) but they do have 300+ miles on them and so I think it's time to switch. New shoes are always fun and I plan to bounce my way though 5 miles on cushiony new shoes.

I don't even want to talk about American Idol. Who the fuck picked that song to be the final song? It was so geared towards Jordin's style of singing and screwed Blake. On top of that it was a crappy song anyways. blah...oh well now Blake and Chris Richardson can go on tour together and Barb and Leah can go back to their teen years and get I Heart Blake shirts and head to their concert. Oh you think I kid.