Tempo followed by recovery

Yesterday I ran an eight mile tempo run, well the second through sixth miles were anyway, I started out with a half mile warm up and then picked it up for a sub 8:30 pace for the next 5.5. It went well was I felt strong throughout, My pace dropped a bit for mile four which is up hill for half of it, but I only lost 15 seconds averaged through the mile split, then back under goal for two more miles. The HR was obviously pretty high though this in the 160s for the first three miles and then over 175 for the next three on avg. I had to push it through this fast 5.5 and then spent the next mile and first of two in a cooldown going up hill and still keeping a relatively high heart rate. The last mile and a half was really slow (12 min miles) and I kept my HR around 150 or less.

I saw a barefoot runner go by and chatted at him for a bit. he told me he had heard that Vibram runners have been cutting the heels out of them. He didn't own a pair and was doing it full on barefoot. Said he might get some for the really hot weather.

After my hard run in the afternoon, I got up pretty early and went out again for a recovery run of six miles. It was slow going and a really good recovery run with very little time spent over my recover ceiling and a lot of it under by 5 beats or more. Boring run, slow run but a totally successful one. Recovery done, time for another quality run tomorrow! Maybe an AeT run with an HR around 160?

Base run

This morning was a typical base run of 6.5 miles, nothing fast, nothing slow. I felt a bit draggy this morning before I ran, but I knew once I got going that I would be fine and I was.

There was one thing I did differently this morning. I have been reading Born to Run by Christopher McDougal. In his quest to figure out why his feet hurt so much (sounds like a similar journey, eh?) he discovers the amazing Tarahumara runners of Mexico and their fantastic ability to run long distances. The book turns into a discussion of barefoot running and the advantages of using the natural foot design as opposed to all of the fancy running shoes, orthotics and inserts we runners hold dear. It made a lot of sense and I would really like to try the Vibram Five Fingers shoes he recommends. I have some reservations though, I wear a half inch lift in my right shoes to compensate for a shorter leg, I wonder how that would work with these and I also wonder if running without my lift would be a bad thing. So with barefoot running on the brain, I did the absolute opposite for my run today and embraced the evil cadre of podiatrists and wore my orthotics for the first time in a couple of months. My feet feel a bit more achey after my run and I don't know if I want to go back to wearing them. But we'll see.