I have no idea what my easy pace is. When training for NYC and even part of San Diego, I ran all of my Tuesday and Thursdays alone. So, easy to me, was well ... easy! This was always over 9:00 and often times averaged closer to 9:30.
Now, I meet all of my cool running friends on these mornings. Somehow, I've learned to not give into that 4:45AM alarm clock. Well, our easy runs are so sporatic. At some point around July, I decided no more miles over 9:00 (unless they were recovery miles). For the most part we had been averaging 8:30-8:50.
After Apalachicola, I thought ... Hmmmm, maybe I should aim for 8:30 range always on my easy run. Yes, I realize this is only 10 seconds over my goal marathon pace ... but, it's easy! AND ... I can't get better if I don't practice running faster, right?! Score. So, last Thursday I was very happy that my 7 miler averaged 8:32 and felt easy! :)
Fast forward to this week! Yesterday, I ran 6.43 miles (Clearly I cannot do math in my head and since I restarted my Garmin after my warm-up, I had to). Otherwise, I would have gone 6.5 or 7 miles. Regardless, I ran: 6:36 (.70 warm up), 8:14, 8:01, 7:56, 7:39 then cooled down with 8:50, 6:34 (.74).
I figured that I'd be a little tired this morning but I was game for my 8:30 pace. Here's how the six miles turned out: 8:29, 7:52, 7:48, 7:43 (at which point I remembered that I have track tomorrow and a 5K on Friday and tried to slow down) 8:29, 8:06 for an average pace of 8:04. I'll take it. It actually felt good to run fast-er!
How does your "easy," "tempo" and "marathon" paces compare?
My easy pace was 9:00 a few months ago. Since then, it has changed on its own to 8:15-8:30. I don't know my others without looking thwem up. Sorry.
ReplyDeleteCan't wait to see your next race report. I still say you are wicked fast!
my easy pace is ALWAYS changing. it totally depends on my mood, if i'm with people, what i did the day before and where i am in the training cycle. so i've *tried* to not get hung up on the pace itself
ReplyDeleteThings look good, Jaime!
ReplyDeleteI think the test is if you can still run well the next day and the same goes for tempo pace. If you plug in your best recent race times to Mcmillan or Runworks calculators, they should give you a good idea for both those paces (you probably already know this). It's all a moving target. :) That makes it fun =D