Friday, October 8, 2010

No Pain, No Gain

I've started to believe more in this statement. I spent so long trying to convince people to just get a little bit of exercise every day -- easy, non-painful exercise -- that I guess I started to believe training goes the same way. Well it doesn't. At least not if you want to improve your fitness, or just not suck at running anymore. 

For years I was perfectly content with the slight fluctuations in my running speed. It usually depended on how tired I was that week, or if I'd done some ridiculous workout the day before. Now it's slow all the time. I will have taken 5 days off running, done little else except some yoga, and I'm slow. I can run every day for 5 days straight, and every run is slow. I can warm up for 3 miles before trying to pick it up, but the pickup is still SLOW.

And it's all painful. If not physically painful, then the pace reading on my garmin produces psychological pain. Sometimes I get both kinds. I went to the track at the end of an extremely flat (but slow!) 8 mile run the other day to do some strides. Suddenly upon getting onto the track my legs switched into this gear that I'd forgotten they had. My stride gets longer and stronger, and it's easier to run faster. Four times around the track with pickups on the straightaways had me going faster and faster each time. I looked down at the garmin to see evidence of my warp speed, only to see 6:30. I actually used to run 10ks at this pace? It must've been another set of legs. But now that I've jogged the memory of those faster running muscles, I'm expecting them to take over any time now.

But in the meantime, I'll go on with my painful yet gainful runs. How about this afternoon's long run at 6800 ft? Don't mind if I do! The next two weeks will be at sea level, and I'm hoping to blame some of my pain on the elevation. Time will tell.

Until then, my running motto will be:
"According to the pain is the gain." - Rabbi Ben Hei 

And finally, good luck to Maggi and Mark and everyone racing in Kona tomorrow! I'm thankful it's you instead of me this year.

No comments:

Post a Comment