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EWEB tempo

February 22, 2013 (Afternoon)

Exercise Type: Run

Comments:
Pretty good morning at work, then ran some errands. By the time it was time to run, it'd started raining. Stretched a fair amount (the luxury of a Friday afternoon run), then mounted up for the last real tempo.

I determined yet ANOTHER stride element: while running "wide" is important, what seems to still be lacking is the ability to truly PUSH OFF the L foot - the weakness that Jeff noted in my ankle, combined with the lingering stiffness in the foot - suggests that while I might be "getting" wide, I'm not pushing off once I get there.

Ran around the Butte and along the river to EWEB for the classic 5K tempo loop. Did x4 strides, focusing on "long jumper approach wide".

The entire focus was SUSTAINABILITY: could I run this way for a whole marathon, SUPS-relaxed?

I took off into light rain and breeze. When I was striding, I ran back and forth past a "street individual" walking down the path. When I zoomed past him down the bike path, now 600m into the tempo, I could've sworn he said, "Old guy's MOVIN!" HA! I guess so!

Ran SE down the bike path toward the Autzen Bridge. The approximate mile mark is at the start of the bridge. I glanced at my watch and *thought* I saw 5:52 - perfect. Very comfortable. Ran over the bridge, around a couple corners on the other side, then finally around the hairpin turn going NW back to Alton.

Focused on:

1.) More hip flexion drive (bilaterally)
2.) "Wide", with special note to push more strongly with the L foot
3.) Forward

Felt pretty good, though I lost breath control on the mild uphill approaching two miles. I don't know the exact spot of the two, but my watch said 11:00 in the area. Huh, seemed fast. I was hoping that I was only 7:00 from the finish, so I could run 18:00, a solid "marathon split" for this course.

Ran along the river, into Alton...

Crossed the bridge up and over, got back to EWEB, and saw my watch: 17:12! Holy shit! Awesome!

That would've meant I somehow cranked it down to like 5:20 pace. But today (Sat AM), I realized I cut out 200m off the loop, forgetting to run the little loop around the pond before crossing! Damn!

Nevertheless, mapmyrun says that loop is exactly 3.0 miles. So, with a first mile of 5:52, I averaged 5:40/mi for the last two. Still very solid.