Wednesday Runnin'

Topic: Six in the Mix
Key Words: 10k, Garmin, Negative Split
Word Count: 424
Next Likely Topic: More Running Myths Exposed!

Tuesday's recovery from the Monday six miles went well; left heel pain was my worst ailment. Come Wednesday, the legs went pretty nice. I had said I would run nine miles tonight, but of course, that's silly. I've been hurt for two weeks, and now I plan to run 30 miles over 8 days??? No. I opted to set a goal of seven, and maintain my speed limit of six MPH.

Leon went to the park with me, but we didn't run together very much; he did step his mileage up to five miles total though. I did my same out 2.5 miles and turn around, and things were OK until around four miles when my knee opposite the hammy got a little angry. Not bad enough to make me stop, but I did have some doubts about increasing up to seven miles. After much debating, I cross the six mile turnaround point and plowed on for seven. Then one minute later I turned around! A lot of reasons to turn around, a lot of reasons to continue, but turning around seemed best. I ended up doing about 6.2 miles (a 10k!) or so in 1:03 and change.

I'm pretty sure I'm about to buy a Garmin or Polar running watch. Garmin is naturally GPS based, while the Polar is accelerometer based. I actually think the Polar system might be more technically sound, since it doesn't depend on those fickle satellites, and it is surprisingly accurate (95% out of the box before before calibration). But you do have to wear a footpod, and I'm not much for extra gear. Anyway ... a late birthday present I suspose.

In the last post I said I was going to focus on running myths. I've always struggled with the traditional advice of "run a negative split, even if it's a tiny negative split", so I started looking for studies, advice ... anything other than folklore. There really doesn't seem to be much in the way of formal scientific advice, but the informal basis for the advice is admittedly sound. I have always said I physically break down too much to run a negative split, but maybe I physically break down because I run too hard early?!? I suppose I need to consider how I would implement a negative split in the run ..... chaos :)