Making Progress

Progress is sometimes hard to see from day to day. The change from any one running day to the next is always negligible, and in fact, might be in the wrong direction. But with the perspective of time, it becomes easier to see how far we have come. I suppose you could also say, with a sufficiently long perspective, I would also see how much I've lost from my youthful peak in my 30's. And while that's true, it doesn't seem important.

Thursday's run this week was an extended tempo run, or what McMillan would call a Steady State run. Lasting up to an hour and run between half marathon and 30K pace, the Steady State workout is one of my favorites. With a 2.5 mile warm up and a 2.5 mile cool down, I ran 6 miles at almost exactly the mid-point of my half marathon and 30K pace. And the run included some good hills and a little bit of wind. One of the things I noticed is that the wind didn't really seem to be an issue. Usually on a run with a specific pace, I find the wind to be a major annoyance. Not so on this run.

The other thing I usually try to avoid is as many hills as I can when I have a tight pace goal. That didn't seem to be an issue either. In fact, as it turns out, I ran 11 miles at an average of marathon pace + 20 seconds. That's a pretty good run. And while I was ready for my chocolate milk when I finished, I wasn't exhausted or fully spent. It was a good workout.

If I were to go back 3 or 6 months, any 11 mile run would have been an accomplishment I would have been pretty proud of- forget pace. But if I do look the paces of my long runs leading up to the Denver Half in October, I would have run many of them at my current marathon pace plus 45 to 60 seconds. These runs were usually either 9 or 11 miles. Generally, a good 30 seconds slower than I ran on Thursday. This is beginning to put Thursday in perspective.

Not only did I run quite a bit faster, but this isn't even my long run. I ran it faster and in the middle of a week that will see about a 50% increase in mileage from when I was training for the half. You know what? That's progress. I'm not sure I'm significantly faster than I was before, but I definitely have more endurance; I'm stronger. I do suspect that I might shave about 15 seconds a mile off my half marathon time right now, but that will have to wait.

The key question is have I built enough endurance to run a BQ at Napa in 3 weeks and 2 days? And I guess that will have to wait, too. At least 3 weeks and 2 days. But my steady state run showed me that I have come quite a ways, qualify or not. I'm less nervous now about race day. I'm feeling more ready. I wouldn't say confident - but definitely more ready.

An interesting turn of events happened this morning at work that has me assigned as the project manager for a new set of customer projects. The projects are quite ambitious in scope and are expected to move quickly. Definitely means travel, and probably before Napa. I hoping to steer it into the week of February 22nd which is a significant taper week.

Funny, but my training plan for the week of the 22nd says I am entering the peak phase of training, and one of the things I need to do is reduce my life stress. Hmmmm. Funny how things work out sometimes. Oh well, I'll focus on relaxing during my 24 mile run tomorrow.