Mind Games

So I decided that my goal for running this year is to (eventually) get back to my corral. I am pretty sure that NYRR must keep your best pace on file for two years, because my bib still says my fastest pace is an 8:03. This is so not true. I have been much much slower since pregnancy and haven't quite been able to get back to the times I was used to two years ago.

I ran the Run for Central Park this week with the idea that I would try to get around a 9:30 pace (baby steps, right?). I had extra cheering from my mom and dad who were visiting, and of course, Bill and Liam.

Liam and Mommy before the race

Unfortunately in the morning rush, I kind of forgot my Garmin. Oh well. No biggie. It was only a four mile race anyways. Bill suggested that I count my strides (now that I know that I do about 90 per mile normally). I was just going to wing it and run how I felt. This is often how I get my best times anyways.

Liam watches for mommy

And it was HOT, so I knew I would be making lots of pit stops for water (I hate chugging and running at the same time).

I felt pretty good, like I was keeping a nine minute pace, but I had no idea if this was true or not.

When I got to mile 2 the heat was kind of getting to me, which I know can make me very drained. So I decided to try the whole counting thing. I figured it was at least a good distraction from the little hills on the west side.

It actually was very distracting, which was great. So I decided to step it up a notch. I would count 100 footfalls on the right side and then start another 100. Each 100 would have to get progressively faster. It actually worked really well! I found it was a lot easier to pick up the pace bit by bit instead of thinking 'I should pick this up soon and then probably a little more'. Because inevitably my next thought is 'But I'm soooooo tiiiiiiiiiiired!' This way the whole pick up the pace thing seemed manageable. Mind games. It's what I've needed to work on with my running for so long and now I've finally figured it out.

By the last turn of the race I was flying! My final kick felt impressive. And I got a 34:01!!! That is a 8:32 pace! Hurrah! I was very proud of myself!

Oh yeah and did I mention that I ran the race in my Vibrams? That was fun too. :)

Highly Efficient

One of the nice things about having a new head coach (Coach Ramon moved over to Team Determination, so Coach Christine is now our head coach) is that we aren't doing the same old workouts. Coach Christine has a much different spin on things, starting with her emails.

Her emails are quite lengthy but super chock-ful of great information. Each week she details an injury, gives us a sample cross-training workout and gives us something new to work on for our Tuesday night workout.

Last week we were supposed to work on running efficiency.

Even though I've been running marathons with running groups since 2007 I have never ever had a workout to concentrate solely on efficiency. I wouldn't even know what efficient running was.

According to Christine, "running with quick, short steps uses less energy than long strides, decreases stress on your muscles, and minimizes impact on your joints. Increased turnover should lead to improved speed, better efficiency, and fewer aches and pains. The most efficient runners have a cadence (number of footstrikes) of about 180 steps per minute. We want to get as close to that as we can."


So our Tuesday night workout consisted of a five mile loop where we counted footstrikes. For the first minute you would run normally and count how many times your right foot hit the ground for one minute. For the next minute you would try to increase that number to 90 (90x2=180). When Coach Sandy demonstrated to my group before practice she actually looked kind of funny...the goal was to swipe your feet up as quickly as possible. The way she demonstrated it looked very jaggedy and not smooth at all. But I also think she was exaggerating just to show us what she was talking about. Anyway, the rest of the workout would be 1 minute of running normal (not counting) and the next minute running while trying to get 180 footstrikes.


Obviously as you get more footstrikes you also start speeding up.


For my first minute I counted...91 footstrikes. What?


The next minute I counted 96.


Hmmmm.


So I counted the next minute and still got 91.


I was kind of confused about this and asked Coach Sandy as I saw her at 102nd Street if it was okay to go over 90. She said that this just meant I was a highly efficient runner.


Well, me being the competitive person that I am, used my "counting" minutes to get even higher turnover. It was fun. For the last three miles I was actually getting 110 each time. It also felt really good...like I wasn't expending an enormous amount of energy but was flying by.


That is, until I got to the last 1.7 miles. That's when my brain kicked in and ruined me (like it always does). Some new guy who didn't know his way around the park asked if there were any TNT people near (most of the group had dropped off because they were doing 4 miles instead of 5). I raised my hand and when he caught up with me he told me that he didn't know where he was going so he would follow me and then he said "I'll race you." ARGH! Of course that puts that in my mind and now I'm not even counting my turnover but just trying to run fast. Total fail. He was pretty far ahead of me and I was out of breath and feeling the heat by the time my watch beeped signaling the next minute. 


So I told myself that I WAS going to beat him by the end of the 1.7 left, but that I was just going to continue on my efficiency workout. I was pretty sure that by doing that I could beat him. And I did! By a lot. He was actually huffing and puffing his way in :)


So anyway, I learned a lot of really good lessons. First, that I am an efficient runner, which is great! It definitely gives me more confidence on my runs. And then secondly that I can beat my mind (that tends to psych me out constantly) by concentrating on something else (in this case, turnover).