run, rest, eat, bitch, buy things, cross-train, blog, repeat.

Thursday, February 26, 2009

How to be Easy...

You know how when things are really clicking in your training and you go out for an "easy" 7 mile recovery run and things feel good. You're alert, you're legs feel good, you feel like you're running an easy pace. And then you get home and look at your watch and realize that you ran at 10k pace? Doh!

It happens to all of us. It's hard to rein yourself in sometimes when you're feeling good. That's when running is awesome. But, it's not necessarily awesome for your training. I mean, there is a reason that EASY days are built into training plans.

And over the course of last night and this morning, I found the foolproof way to ensure that you will run at an EASY pace.

First, the day before... be really busy at work and grab an apple for lunch (Yes, that's all. Ugh!). Next, go to wine class on empty stomach. Consume 5 half-filled glasses of Cabernet and instead of listening to wine dude during the class, become chatty cathy and talk the entire time, thereby missing out on winning a bottle of wine because you didn't know the answer to the trivia question. Booooo.

Then, go to dinner... consume another half bottle of wine and eat oysters, salmon, salad, and anything else that is plopped down in front of you. After gorging yourself, go to a show and stand for approximately 2.5 hours, taking care not to get whipped in the face by mullet lady's locks who is standing in front of you and has employed the head/hair flip dance accompanied by the toe tap side to side as her dance du jour.

Last, get home and in bed by 12:45am, and set your alarm for 5:34am.

Who would have thought? You do all these things and BAM, like magic... you can run 9 miles at 10:00/mile pace. Awesome.

By the way, thank god, I got a resounding NO to the track workout idea from yesterday... ummm.. yeah, there's no way I could have done that this morning. But, good to know that track workouts are never a good idea that close to a race.

9 comments:

RunnerMom said...

That pace thing happens to me when I try to go out easy in a race. I always start out too fast. One of these days I'm going to figure out the art of negative splits.

I'm glad you ran some easy miles, though. Those runs have value, too. Too bad you went through so much to get there.... Not a recipe for fast running. Wine on an empty stomach is my favorite. I'd be chatting up everyone in sight as well.

Chic Runner said...

I so know the easy feeling. I'm stoked that this weekend I only have to run 12 miles... SAD. ha ha, I used to freak out about that! :) Glad you are rockin out there!

Vandy-Montana said...

I wanted to marry the mullet hair lady. I might even have to post in the missed connections thread on Craigslist...

StangLuvr said...

I know who she is!!! She is The Lion King's wife....You should have known that with those flowing locks of hair!!!!

Where and when is this wine class?

Joe said...

it's good to have a strategy!

ECrunnergirl said...

HA! That was great....gotta try that one :+) Boy sometimes it really is hard to go "easy" especially when you feel so good and so strong!

Mullet hair lady?? I can only imagine what she REALLY looked like after several glasses of wine!

Spike said...

sounds like a great night and lots of fun, no free prize and mullet aside. I love adult continuing education classes.

Van 1- Hall said...

this post is B.S.

It starts with the line "how to be easy" and then goes into you drinking wine and getting toasted...I figured it would lead to HOT action...WTF!

I just stood outside naked for an hour and jumped in the river...I need something to excite me!

Eric Gervase said...

I'm having trouble doing the opposite lately. My legs are trashed.