My alarm goes off at the inconceivable time of 3:45 AM on running days. As much as I prepare the night before or try as I might, I can never seem to shorten my time from alarm to running. I think it takes me an hour just to wake up. I really envy those people that say they get dressed and head out the door. All I can think is that they are much younger than I am or don’t experience the plague of injuries that I have. It takes me a half an hour just to do my warm up!
I could be exaggerating on that slightly but only ever so slightly.
Day 2
Day 2 was a longer run than yesterday; 5 easy, conversational pace miles. I did not have much trouble staying within the prescribed conversational pace range today. My legs felt heavy after yesterday’s kettlebell workout. I think I went a bit too high on my rep count so I’ve made a note in my training journal to drop back the number of kettlebell reps for next week.
AM Running
To keep me within my conversational pace range I programmed my run, including a warm up and cool down, into my Coros Pace 2 watch. Using a watch as a tool to learn how to recognize how you feel at certain paces is a good reason to invest in a watch. I like to play a game while I’m running to see if I can guess my pace based on how I’m feeling. It’s hit and miss with regards to how close I get and is based largely on how I’m feeling that day and the weather. If it’s hot, I can easily underestimate my pace. I’ll feel like I’m working really hard and then I check my watch and realize that I’m actually running slower than my normal conversational pace. Yet, I feel like I’m working harder.
Thankfully, I mostly run early in the morning so I don’t typically deal with overheating, with the exception of longer runs on the weekend. My current training plan will take me through early mornings in the winter. Now granted, I’m in Southern California so our winters are not like much of the country experiences. There’s certainly no snow and hardly any rain. However, for this native SoCal resident I’m a big, baby wimp when it comes to being cold and anything less than 55 degrees (Farenheit) is down-right freezing in my book. I’m well stocked with overshirts and sweat-wicking pullovers though, so bring on the cold!
I’m not so sure about the rain. I have a light-weight running rain jacket that I picked up on Amazon last year when I thought I may experience rainy weather for a race I ran in San Francisco. However, the weather was gorgeous and I only wore it while I warmed up and then I left it in the car. Therefore, I still have never run in the rain so I’m not so sure how I’ll do with that. I’m up for the challenge though, so given the opportunity (necessity) I will be running in the rain during this marathon training cycle.
One nice thing about early morning running is that it’s so quiet. There are hardly any cars driving through the neighborhood so I can run in the street without dodging cars. I wear a Noxgear Tracer 2 light vest and a headlamp, so I’m still very visible when cars do come toward me.
My light gear works well to confuse the local wildlife, too. Coyotes often come up from the surrounding canyons and roam through the neighborhoods during this hour, as well as skunks. One morning last winter, my path crossed a coyote while I was lit up like a Christmas tree. It just stood there, staring at me from across the street, probably wondering what that alien creature was staring back at him. Eventually, he trotted in the other direction and I continued my run. It was a little unnerving but I could tell it wanted nothing to do with me and wanted to keep its distance from me as much as I wanted to keep my distance from him.
Tomorrow’s training is another easy, conversational pace run. The first three weeks of this training plan is dedicated to building my marathon specific base and establishing a consistent 5 days a week of running which is up from 3 to 4 days a week in my off-season.
Workout
- 5 mile conversational pace run