My On’s were on and my Off’s were off; but I don’t think that is what he meant.

Well my Hudson-based workout today was supposed to consist of a 14 mile on/off workout:

14 mile moderate (~9:20-9:25) run including HM  workout- run the first mile @ moderate effort then run the even miles @ HM effort (8:37-8:42) then the odd miles at marathon effort (9:10-9:15) or easier. Finish the last mile as hard as you like

  

My first problem was that I ran the paces on actual Training Pace, not effort, as was called for; I didn’t even realize it said “effort” until I just pasted the workout here; oops. Also, I made the mistake of using racing shoes, with very little support, for the first time on a run of this distance. I’ve worn them twice before for a short, easy/moderate runs. The course I run on here has a lot of rocks and changes terrain (sand/dirt/rocks), so I need the cushion of my Stability shoes for these longer runs; oops. Luckily, the problems with the run came only from those two things; no heat or hydration issues. It was actually a pretty good workout; although I planned for a great workout. This is the entry into my running log for today...

 14 Mile on/off run. 'On' portions were supposed to be at HM Pace and 'off' portions at GMP. Run felt really good. Started having pain in my feet around mile 8 (using new "racers" for a long run on rocks is not a good idea). Pain in my right leg around mile 10 or 11. Was able to push through the pain for the "on" portions of the run. Overall I am happy with the quality of the run, even though the 'off' portion suffered a bit.

So my splits were pretty good and got progressively faster during the ‘on’ portions. I can’t complain about the workout at all. I do wonder if it would have been more consistency if I had worn my normal shoes?

These are the splits for the run:

All in all, I was expecting this workout to show me that I’m progressing in the right direction. I don’t have anything to really measure against, except my effort level from each workout. This was supposed to be a challenging workout and it was fairly so. But not totally. I can’t actually say that it was aneasy workout because I did not hit the paces that I wanted to hit for my “off” portions. As always, I capped of the run with my Gatorade Chocolate Recovery Protein shake!

So now I go into another training week, to see how my body develops.

I am coming off a Recovery week, last week with just 26.84 miles/ SportsTracks gives me 38.21 miles for the week, 23 of those miles were quality workouts. Next week I am scheduled for 40 miles, with 22 miles worth of quality workouts.

It is true that speed kills. In distance running, it kills anyone who does not have it.
-~Brooks Johnson