Going Slower to Get Faster

Pushed myself on today’s tempo run - a 6.23 mile effort in 49:50 for exactly an 8:00 pace. What was interesting was that I’ve equaled my December distance, but did it fourteen minutes faster than I did that month… which translates to an average of 19 seconds faster per mile.

What’s more interesting, though, looking at the graph is that I’ve actually had fewer tempo runs in January (the burgundy), which means that most of the improvement has actually come in running my slower runs quicker.

Or - if we want to be critical - it could mean that I’m not slowing down as much as I should on the easier runs, either.

All in all, though, no complaints for the month, which has also included a fair amount of cycling… for the yuckiest month of the year, it’s a good base month.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The gun in my basement.

Image
In my basement, I have a safe. And in that safe, under expired passports and birth certificates, there's a gun. It's unloaded. Hasn't been loaded in probably twenty years, and yet every time I take it out, I check to make sure. If you're a gun nerd, it's a 9 shot .22 revolver. On this website , it says that "it is true that many people have been killed by a .22 LR in the course of history," but the writer concludes that this weapon is a bad choice for self defense. I didn't buy it for self defense. I didn't even buy it. It was my father's and after he died, my mother gave it me, along with an Elgin watch he'd worn for years. The watch was weathered and worn and I took it to be restored. The jeweler refused, saying it was worthless. Two decades later, the watch is still in my jewelry box. There's no need for it to be locked up. I have no idea if this gun is in my possession legally. No idea if my father had a permit for it, or w
Read more

Happy D-Blog Day, Uh, I Guess...

So according to diabetics blog-wide, today is D-Blog Day, the day when those of us affected by diabetes are supposed to blog about it. Or draw awareness to diabetes... Or something like that. I'm really a bad poster child for the disease. Not because I'm not in great control (actually, I am), but because I've just never been bothered by the disease so much. Red sums it up well in Shawshank Redemption: "Get busy living, or get busy dying." So if living means three blood sugar tests a day, so be it. If living means being hooked up to an insulin pump, go to it. That being said, I feel for anyone with diabetic kids... I'm a tough guy about the disease. I wouldn't be if my kids had it. If either of my kids had diabetes, I'd be screaming about the politicians who are spending money on wars instead of research, and I'd be yelling about the schools that make it difficult to be a diabetic in the classroom. But my kids don't have diabetes, so instead I
Read more

Jon Obst - RIP

Image
Last night, I learned that Jon Obst, one of the best diabetic ultra runners the world has known and my teammate on the original Team Type 1 Running Team, had passed away. For me and for everyone who knew Jon, the news was heartbreaking. Since I learned about Jon's death, I've been thinking about the stories I knew about him. It would be entirely incorrect to say we were close. Near as I can count, we spent time together on four weekends for races, with a casual Facebook relationship in between and since. But the thing with Jon was, you didn't have to spend much time with him to feel close to him. Before I begin,  I want you to know how good of a runner Jon was. If you look at his results , you'll see that he completed 36 ultra races, finishing 11 of them on the podium. Anyone who has completed a single ultra knows how deep of a well it takes you to compete in such races. Keep in mind, this list doesn't include the races Jon didn't finish and anyone who knows
Read more