Well I did my ten miler this weekend with the last 5 at my "desired" pace for the half that I am doing in two weeks. Lets just say my desires did not match reality on Saturday. It was a breezy day, not super windy but breezy, but I set the run up so that I ran the first five into the wind and would have a wind aided Race Pace section. I really have not done much hard training with all of this base training so I really did not know what to expect.

After five miles I stopped and stretched. You see I have been working on shortening my stride and increasing turnover to become more of a mid foot striker. I am not going so far as to try to go to the pose method but I am just trying to land more mid foot so I don't feel that thud when my foot strikes. I believe in the concept of keeping your footstrike under your center of gravity. But lets just say this change was one thing on the treadmill and shorter runs but over longer distances it has created some soreness in my lower calves.

Anyway, off I went on my return trip home telling myself to just hold pace gut it out and see what my HR's tell me. Well here is how it went.

Miles 1-5 Aerobic Warmup 8:55 avg HR 150

With my Lactic Threshold being somewhere around 170 it becomes pretty apparant that running in that 7:40 range has me over my LT and thus likely not able to hold this pace for a full 13.1 miles. So while my head says go out and try to run a 1:40 my body is telling me somthing different. I will need to give this some thought.

My initial reaction is why not just be satisfied shaving a bit off of my Half Marathon PR of 1:43:56?? I mean at that time I was in likely the best "running shape" I have ever been in, 4 weeks before my one and only marathon. But nooooo I think I can shave 4 minutes off that time, seriously who do I think I am? One voice in my head says dial it back have fun with the race the real goal is the Half Iron. But then I know running hard races builds mental toughness and that is such a big part of racing. I also know the 13.1 at the end of the 70.3 will be gut check time. But beyond all of this, and I may be crazy, but I can honestly say I have never "BONKED" in a race. Gone out to fast and not been able to hold on. While this is not someting I want to do. At the same time I wonder how do we know what is inside of us until we actually push ourselves to the point where the body finally pulls a Roberto Duran and cries NO MAS?

I need to set some goals for this race but I feel like I need to be realistic, I honestly don't think a sub 1:40 is in the cards until perhaps the fall. I will let you know what I decide later.

Here is a little snapshot of my week as planned. I need to add strength in there somewhere and I might stretch the swims out a bit. My other main goal for the week is to begin to catch up on converting my family video to DVD....I am only about three years behind on this. Thanks for reading, have a great week.