The Rest Phase

Next week marks the end of my month long Rest Phase.  During that time I've run two to three times a week and logged a total of 69 miles which works out to just over 17 miles a week.  I've also added three one hour work outs in the gym consisting primarily of lifting heavy weights (I use the term "heavy" very loosely here) and dividing those workouts into Chest Day, Back Day and Leg Day.  So how exactly is that a Rest Phase?

Well, mostly its in the type of running I do as well as how often I do it.

Since about September of last year I was running four to six times a week and doing at least one, sometimes as many as three, very intense workouts.  That sort of training puts a lot of wear on the body and mind and eventually one hits a plateau.  I know I did.  My 1500 peaked at a 5:01 in June and went slightly backwards over the next two months.  It was time for a break so for the past month I took that break.

Each of my runs lately has been between five and ten miles and I've kept them at a comfortable pace.  Never really pushing it, but not going so slow I didn't break a sweat.  My legs always felt good even on the days after my run and I just sort of allowed my mind to relax and enjoy the scenery and the feeling of those easy runs.  I think that was the best part of this for me: the mental relaxation.  I got a little tired of pushing myself really hard one day, then spending the next day getting psyched up to do it again.  A year of that and I needed the break.  And over the last month I've found my pace has steadily crept up even though my effort never really felt like it changed.

What started as runs averaging just under 8:30 pace they wound up dropping down to right around 8 flat and still feeling like they were easy.  My endurance was improving without having to really work at it and my mind was beginning to feel that fire again.  I was itching to run fast, but I was holding back.

Well, holding back for the most part.  This past week I was down in Manteo running with friends, a couple that I hadn't seen in awhile, and we set out to do an easy eight miles.  The first seven we kept around 8:15 pace while running through trails and back roads and just all over the north end of the island, but David was saying he really wanted to take off for the final mile.  He's in training for the Outer Banks Marathon and his training runs have him looking at a 3:30 or better so he's pretty pumped.  As he talked about his training along with the rest of them I could only say I'd been taking it easy but was about ready to get started again with my sprint workouts and ramping up my mileage to build my base before starting hills in October.  David was sort of the guide that morning so as we moved along in the seventh mile he laid out where we would go because he was planning on leaving us.

That's all it took.

"I'll go with you," I said.

"Oh you think?"  He replied.

We made a turn around near the middle school and lined up the last mile down the bike path.  One guy with us was doing 16 miles so he waved goodbye and headed the opposite direction and the other two guys told us to go on without them.  I looked at my garmin and called out "6.94" and David said, "we'll go on your watch."

At the beep we took off.

Now David is about 6' 2" and a muscular black dude.  I'm short, old and white.  However, we matched stride for stride as we rolled up faster and faster.  It was funny that when my watched beeped the half mile mark it was the first time I realized that neither one of us had said a word since the start of that last mile.  Here we'd been yammering the whole damn day and now we were mute.  I glanced at him and caught him looking at me.  The last half mile was interesting because as I slowed some because I was really getting winded, he would move ahead a little and pull me along.  A moment later he seemed to slow, so I gritted a bit and accelerated some and he came back along with me.  We pumped hard and high fived when my watched chimed again.

As we turned the last corner to get back to our cars he was fooling with his garmin and announced the last mile was done in 6:23.

"Really?" I said.

"Damn that was great!" he crowed.

And it was.  It felt so good and was just cool to have him to run with.

So now it's time to start back into it for winter track by building my endurance base with longer runs and adding a fourth one on Sundays.  I still have to do the three weight days because that's needed to build the muscle I'm going to need for the speed work to come in the winter.

I'm going to have to explain the difference between sprint work and speed work, and how it's possible to do sprint and endurance work as part of "easing" into more intense workouts.  Sounds goofy, but I assure you it makes sense.

Happy running!