Lacking any imagination today, I ended up doing my overly familiar Cranberry Lake loop. It's not a bad run, as a matter of fact, it's really very picturesque; but as the old saying goes, familiarity can breed contempt. I took the long loop and made it in 48:48 which was probably ~4:45/k pace, and then hopped on the treadmill at the gym to give me ~12K for the run. The last K I did run in 4:40/k (7.9mph) which twigged my sleepy brain into a move.
As I was on the treadmill, I got to thinking about my E (easy) pace. After getting home I looked up in the Jack Daniels tables where my current E pace should be, and I believe I should be shooting for something closer to the 4:40/k (7:31/mile) range. I sometimes am so focused on the times for my quality sessions that I fall into doing the same easy pace for a long, long time. I have been doing my current E-pace for too long I think. I need to focus on getting it down to 4:40/k. If there is one shortcoming with my approach to the J.D. training guide, it is that I get too focused on the pacing chart and don't push myself to a new VDOT (bump up in training). This is closely related to VO2 max. Those unfamiliar with the Jack Daniels training guide can ignore the previous acronym. I think after some considerable training at a given pace, you need to push to a new faster pace if you want to see improvements. This is probably stating the obvious, but I need to remind myself of it.
2 comments:
Daniels is tough in that respect, especially if you don't race too often. As I remember it, he says to only bump up your VDOT when you've proved you're ready by racing at a higher level (which would indicate you've switched up VDOT's). One problem with this is that races have so many uncontrolable variables, while our standard training courses (and our performance on them) seem to be a more logical proving ground for increased aerobic capacity. I guess he's just trying to keep people from "racing" their workouts, which makes some sense.
You're analysis is spot on. As you've probably guessed, I haven't raced too much in the last 6 months. Part of the problem is that I live in a relatively remote spot and we only have about 3 (small) local races. I've got a 1/2marathon in Oct. and 10k in Nov --both out of town.
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