An awful lot is going on in our world and as I have said before I am not ignoring it.

With all the crapola going on, I really didn’t feel like running a harder workout and procrastinated getting going until I either was going to run or just zippola in the log book.

The mental drain of everything is taking its toll on most of us and I know that it is taking its toll on me.

The Run

Planned: 8 x .25 and 4 x 200 at a hard effort (breathing hard and pushing the pace) in other words a track workout without the track. Today I decided at the last moment that I wasn’t going to get into shoe hell and try out a different pair of shoe every mile to see which one works the best for me and went with the NB 1400 v6. I wanted to focus on how they felt for me for an entire workout

What I did

• 1.0 mile warm-up

0.26 repeats

• 1 – 1:42 / 6:32
• 2 – 1:46 / 6:47
• 3 – 1:49 / 6:59
• 4 – 1:50 / 7:03
• 5 – 1:53 / 7:14
• 6 – 2:15 / 8:39
• 7 – 2:12 / 8:27
• 8 – 1:55 / 7:22

Yes, after the first four they sucked today, even though the humidity was great and the temps were about perfect. I didn’t realize how much I slowed down on repeats 6 & 7, but damn I slowed down an awful lot those two didn’t I. I couldn’t even push harder on the last one to break 7:00.

Two telephone pole repeats

• 1 – 0:29 / 6:57
• 2 – 0:29 / 6:57
• 3 – 0:26 / 6:14
• 4 – 0:26 / 6:14
• 5 – 0:30 / 7:12
• 6 – 0:30 / 7:12
• 7 – 0:30 / 7:12
• 8 – 0:30 / 7:12
• 9 – 0:26 / 6:14

I did better on the shorter repeats, but even those felt forced an not really smooth the entire distance. Then on the first three, I would start to pick up the pace to a good hard effort and the for some reason it would knock off my music, which of course distracted me. Another reason to run without music, but at the same time I do like the way that it helps me up the cadence a little more during the hard parts of a repeat.

The Good?

I did do 8 quarter repeats, which is 2 more than last week so that was a win. I did an extra stride because I miscounted again, once I get above 6-7 I seem to loose track of how many repeats I have done, so I tend to do an extra one just to make sure that I do the number that I wanted. Actually, I just wanted to get to 7.0 miles total and then be able to shut it down for my half mile walk to cool down.

What did I learn?

That I lost my focus on running harder for repeats 6 & 7 and the legs/brains didn’t have enough to get it back for the last one to be where I wanted to be. You can’t control the direction of the wind and it was messing with my mind more than my body. I have to make my peace with the wind, because it seems as though we are going to be getting plenty of it for a while.

What was I thinking?

Focusing on the lean and attempting to get more on the midfoot and was surprised when I changed to the roll-through stride for the striders and felt a lot smoother.

• Course: No Track Tuesday – Philbrick Road
• Weather: Clear and sunny, 58*F, Humidity 38%, Wind 7 mph NNW
• Distance: 7.03
• Time: 1:03:09
• Pace: 8:59

Shoes:

New Balance 1400 v6 – To be honest I was a little disappointed with how they felt underfoot, especially once I started to get tired. When I run faster, I get closer to having a mid/forefoot landing and with the 1400 v6s it just did not feel quite where I wanted it to be. I actually think that the Beacon v1s would have done a better job for the complete workout than the 1400 v6 did. Which means that next week I might be trying out the Beacons or going back to the Zoom Fly SP as my secondary go faster shoes.

Progress:

I am doing a little more each week on speedwork, without going too deep into the well on the effort level. Unfortunately, I was more than a little disappointed with myself about my effort levels on the last half of the quarter repeats. Yes, the 7-10 mph headwind played a part, but I have to run the conditions and not the conditions mess with my head that much.

The strides surprised me at how slow I was while doing them. I haven’t done any striders for a while and it really did show. While they are typically something that I enjoy doing, I have been more than a little lazy about doing them after easy runs and need to incorporate them 2-3 more times a week.

Also, while I did a pretty good job of focusing on the repeats, my mind did wander too much the more I got tired. If I am mentally distracted it will affect my workout and in today’s world I tend to believe that almost everyone is distracted and attempting to process the best ways we all can the stuff that is going on around us.