Day Thirty Three - I Can Always Hear You Coming
Last night was rough, but in sort of a good way. You know what I mean.
We met up at the usual place and got our instructions for the night. We were going to be running a shorter distance but alternating between E4 (OK, maybe it's not balls out sprinting like I figured it was last week, but it's pretty close) and then recovering at E1 (we learned that there is no such thing as going too slow for recovery, so I'll let you figure out what E1 means to you because I'm all about making you think). And we were going to do this until they told us we could stop. Scary stuff. So I'm standing there thinking about how hard last week was and how I set my E3 too high at first and then at the end I couldn't go as fast in E3 and how this week I would adjust it when it hit me...
...you know that moment when you're learning something new and you sort of get it but not really and then BAM, it all makes sense. Like, you might not know everything about it, but you figure out the process and it makes sense and you can't even really believe that you didn't see this before because it seems so clear? I remember the same thing happening when I was learning to play guitar. It was like...so, bar chords...are...OH! It's an E but with the other finger barring the fret. It's just an E chord! That makes so much sense.
So yeah, anyway, about this time last night that happened in regards to effort levels. I'm standing there going "OK, not too fast because you don't want to crap out too soon when Ramon said something that cleared everything up (despite the fact that he's been saying basically the same thing for two weeks now). He said "It's OK if you're not going as fast at the end as you are at the beginning, as long as the effort is there." AH HA! EFFORT DOES NOT EQUAL SPEED. So I didn't set my pace wrong last week. It just got harder to keep up with the effort level after running that long. You're muscles are going to tire, but if you can maintain your breathing and keep up the effort you are doing the proper workout. Which is not to say I didn't make mistakes last week, because clearly I did, but at least I understood the nature of those mistakes a little better.
So with my newfound understanding of the world we took off on a warm up jog up to The Central Park Driveway. Once there we split ourselves into groups and at intervals started running really fast on the quarter mile length. Ramon was standing in the middle (sort of) and when we reached him we would downshift from E4 to E1 to recover until we reached the other end, then turn around and haul ass back to him, then recover to the other side. We did this back and forth for probably 35 minutes or so. Maybe less, who can say? In the end I would guess I did the loop (half a mile total) six times, plus the 3/4 of a mile up and back from our starting point as a warm up/cool down.
Oh yeah - the title of this entry. Towards the end of the 2nd E4 section of my 5th lap I caught up with a guy that I had met the very first night we all met as a team. When we switched to E1 he said to me that he can always hear me coming because it sounds like I'm on E5. Now, part of that I'll blame on the sinus infection I have been fighting for a couple of weeks. Another part I'll blame on me trying to breathe through the ridiculous cramp I had in my left side (I think E4 - E1 running is very conducive to these cramps as I heard other people complaning of them too) and my patented (i.e. stolen from some random girl I ran with like twice in college) Cramp-Away Breathing Technique. The other part I'm just going to have to own as part of my generally terrible breathing habits as I run, seeing as I am a recently retired smoker of 10 years and the fact that I am in generally poor health all around. It's funny because earlier in the run I was thinking "Man, I'm really loud" but I told myself that it was probably amplified in my head and that no one else could hear it. Thanks for kicking me in the insecurity, buddy.
After the run I joined G-Rocks and some other Team members for a quick beer before heading home. We talked with this couple who did a triathalon last year (wow) and is training for their first marathon now. You know why they do the swimming first in a triathalon? So you don't drown, idiot. See that, I'm dumb so you don't have to be. And now you know.
That's it for now. Thanks for reading, more later...
DAY 33
TODAY's MILEAGE - 4.5
TOTAL MILEAGE - 69.25 (SO CLOSE TO 70)
We met up at the usual place and got our instructions for the night. We were going to be running a shorter distance but alternating between E4 (OK, maybe it's not balls out sprinting like I figured it was last week, but it's pretty close) and then recovering at E1 (we learned that there is no such thing as going too slow for recovery, so I'll let you figure out what E1 means to you because I'm all about making you think). And we were going to do this until they told us we could stop. Scary stuff. So I'm standing there thinking about how hard last week was and how I set my E3 too high at first and then at the end I couldn't go as fast in E3 and how this week I would adjust it when it hit me...
...you know that moment when you're learning something new and you sort of get it but not really and then BAM, it all makes sense. Like, you might not know everything about it, but you figure out the process and it makes sense and you can't even really believe that you didn't see this before because it seems so clear? I remember the same thing happening when I was learning to play guitar. It was like...so, bar chords...are...OH! It's an E but with the other finger barring the fret. It's just an E chord! That makes so much sense.
So yeah, anyway, about this time last night that happened in regards to effort levels. I'm standing there going "OK, not too fast because you don't want to crap out too soon when Ramon said something that cleared everything up (despite the fact that he's been saying basically the same thing for two weeks now). He said "It's OK if you're not going as fast at the end as you are at the beginning, as long as the effort is there." AH HA! EFFORT DOES NOT EQUAL SPEED. So I didn't set my pace wrong last week. It just got harder to keep up with the effort level after running that long. You're muscles are going to tire, but if you can maintain your breathing and keep up the effort you are doing the proper workout. Which is not to say I didn't make mistakes last week, because clearly I did, but at least I understood the nature of those mistakes a little better.
So with my newfound understanding of the world we took off on a warm up jog up to The Central Park Driveway. Once there we split ourselves into groups and at intervals started running really fast on the quarter mile length. Ramon was standing in the middle (sort of) and when we reached him we would downshift from E4 to E1 to recover until we reached the other end, then turn around and haul ass back to him, then recover to the other side. We did this back and forth for probably 35 minutes or so. Maybe less, who can say? In the end I would guess I did the loop (half a mile total) six times, plus the 3/4 of a mile up and back from our starting point as a warm up/cool down.
Oh yeah - the title of this entry. Towards the end of the 2nd E4 section of my 5th lap I caught up with a guy that I had met the very first night we all met as a team. When we switched to E1 he said to me that he can always hear me coming because it sounds like I'm on E5. Now, part of that I'll blame on the sinus infection I have been fighting for a couple of weeks. Another part I'll blame on me trying to breathe through the ridiculous cramp I had in my left side (I think E4 - E1 running is very conducive to these cramps as I heard other people complaning of them too) and my patented (i.e. stolen from some random girl I ran with like twice in college) Cramp-Away Breathing Technique. The other part I'm just going to have to own as part of my generally terrible breathing habits as I run, seeing as I am a recently retired smoker of 10 years and the fact that I am in generally poor health all around. It's funny because earlier in the run I was thinking "Man, I'm really loud" but I told myself that it was probably amplified in my head and that no one else could hear it. Thanks for kicking me in the insecurity, buddy.
After the run I joined G-Rocks and some other Team members for a quick beer before heading home. We talked with this couple who did a triathalon last year (wow) and is training for their first marathon now. You know why they do the swimming first in a triathalon? So you don't drown, idiot. See that, I'm dumb so you don't have to be. And now you know.
That's it for now. Thanks for reading, more later...
DAY 33
TODAY's MILEAGE - 4.5
TOTAL MILEAGE - 69.25 (SO CLOSE TO 70)
posted by Demps at 10:39 AM
1 Comments:
although i thankfully didn't have to use the lose-the-cramp-technique, don't worry, i also am a heavy breather.
i'm talking about running of course.
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