Where do I even begin?...
The idea of running 7 miles on the treadmill was a bit daunting, but it was my only option with my Pittsburgh Steelers fan of a husband in PA for the game. I knew I wouldn't be running until the evening, so I anticipated dreading it all day. It's possible my thoughts were clouded by last night's Frosty Shots with the neighbors, but I really didn't worry too much about it until 8:00 when it was time to actually get on the treadmill and go.
For fear I would burn myself out too quickly, I set the treadmill at 6.2 mph and intended to keep that pace for at least the first half of my run. Apparently that pace agrees with my body and I spent the first mile feeling just about as optimistic as I've ever been during this marathon training journey. I felt good physically and every thought in my head centered around my ability to run this marathon in the spring. It never occurred to me to consider that I was only a mile in... the fact that I was going to run 7 miles today was all it took to renew my faith in my ability to achieve this goal. Miles 3 through 5 were a little harder...
I don't know why, but I have such a hard time setting a pace and sticking with it. I find it necessary to constantly push myself harder and to finish as hard as I can. It's not a bad thing... it's just strange that I can't simply end a run at the same pace at which I started. This run was no different. At about 2.8 miles, I decided to bump up the speed to 6.3, at 3.8 miles it went up to 6.4 and at 4.8 miles it went up to 6.5. From 5.8 miles on, I convinced myself that I could handle anything, so I proceeded to bump up the speed every two-tenths of a mile until the last half mile when I pushed it to every tenth of a mile. Of course, the last two-tenths were an all-out sprint to the finish. When I get to the last half mile of any run, I find myself constantly saying "you can handle anything for five minutes", which just forces me to push that much harder... knowing the end is so near and that, the faster I go, the sooner I reach the finish line. My top speed at the end was 8.0 mph... not bad at the end of a 7 mile run :)
I find myself wondering after every run what an actual trainer would say about my crazy training techniques. I imagine they might not think it was the best idea in the world, but I can tell you of at least one positive side effect I've found... I've found that, after a couple of miles at one consistent pace, my legs occasionally start to cramp. For the most part, cramping of any kind would cause me to temporarily slow down. I believe the change in pace allows your muscles to change their actions just enough to alleviate the cramping. While I never would have considered it before, I believe the same is true when you increase your pace and for the exact same reason. If a repetitive movement causes cramping, changing the movement should help alleviate it. Since there's no other reason to slow the pace down, I'm finding that increasing the pace has had the same effect on alleviating leg cramps. During these 7 miles, every time I increased the speed, it alleviated any minor fatigue and cramping in my legs allowing me to continue on that much longer. Who knows, maybe the insane way I'm choosing to train myself is not so strange after all...
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