I wasn’t going to get caught resting on my laurels with the sun blazing yesterday, so I met Landon at John Carroll again for an afternoon run. While several other training-bloggers have had opportunities to wear shorts in recent weeks, I had my own day in the sun: I went gloveless. That’s right. No gloves on a run. Pretty impressive for mid-March, eh?
Maybe not.
But I was wearing sunglasses and having a swell time. We took off from John Carroll and headed northish on Fairmount Boulevard, running past my favorite CH houses, to Coventry to Mayfield Road. Lovely, lovely, lost-free route.Hills on this trek weren't visually apparent, but their cardiovascular impact was. At least I imagine it was to Landon because he had to hear me huff-and-puff the whole way (he was just fine).
We ran 7.6 miles in under 1:12:00, which amounts to 9:30/mile pace. I admittedly took us off a little faster than I should during our 20-minute warm-up, but I get so excited when I’m talking about good-job stories, running with friends or getting out on a nice day.
But I paid for it too: not only did I catch a stitch 30 minutes into the run, I had to take a walk break ten minutes from the end of our run for some quick recovery. Have I gone lame-o?
As I mentioned the other day, I've officially begun my Akron Marathon (and Cleveland Half Marathon) training and I'm following the plan outlined in Jeff Galloway's book Marathon: You Can Do It!, which my mom gave me for Christmas. It contains all the nutrition and cross-training information I should have known last year, as well as an interesting recommendation: short walk breaks.
Briefly speaking, walk breaks "vary the use of the muscle and reduce intensity of the work. Because you're not using the muscle in the same way continuously, you significantly increase the distance you can cover before fatigue sets in." Which makes sense. What surprised me is that these breaks, especially when you're building or rebuilding your miles, won't hurt my endurance. We'll see.
If you visit the book's Google Book preview and flip to pages 9-11, you can read Galloway's take on walk breaks.
My need for breaks made me realize, however, that I have plenty of rebuilding to do. This run was my longest (and hilliest) since my October-through-January hiatus. My legs felt strong, but my endurance could use some Vitamin Water or something.
Speaking of Vitamin Water, Landon mentioned that his friend will appear in a forthcoming Vitamin Water commercial, and I’m eager to learn whether it’s LeBron James’ latest.News says LBJ plays a lawyer; I don’t know how Vitamin Water helps his case. But in a recent CNN story, LBJ says that if his career had taken a different path, he might have made a good attorney: “I can be real intimidating when I put my game face on,” he says. “And I never lose.”
Who else can make intimidating look so damn good too? Some people were just meant for stardom.
And if plans hold up, Landon and I will be all-stars this weekend: we’re planning a cross-Cleveland run on Saturday morning.
It just got interesting…
1 comments:
ooooh I love Johnny Mango! I wish I was going to be around.
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