An Odd Little Jaunt

OBJECTIVE
3 mi. including 1 EZ, 1@7:15, 1 EZ

ACHIEVED
3.0 mi.
8:22/6:56/7:50

4:50 AM 63° 80% 0 mph

This was a strange run. My right knee is still bothersome. It feels bruised underneath the kneecap. I still have no idea what I did to it. It was fine last Thursday morning in DC but wasn't later that day. It seems it's been getting slightly better each day but I'm concerned that the issue may not be fully cleared by Saturday. So this morning I was monitoring it closely. At the outset, it was stiff and sore. Midway through the first mile, I stopped thinking about it and it stopped being a bother. But it was still "there".

The temperature was great this morning. In fact, I wore long sleeves against the coolness in the air. I reminded myself that 63° might be the warmest temperature during the marathon. Although I'm certain the 83% humidity this morning made the air feel cooler.

With the temperature cool and my legs feeling good from the taper, the first mile rolled off easily at 8:22. I felt like I was walking. The pickup mile came next. I didn't know if I could comfortably get to and hold 7:15. The "getting to" was easy. I dropped to under a 7:00/mile average pace right out of the gate. This isn't unusual. It just means I'll be getting slower over the distance. That didn't happen this morning. My pace drifted up a bit as I didn't want to push too hard. It is "zero week" after all. But I still came in at 6:56; 19 seconds faster than planned. The effort felt like I pushed it but it wasn't hard.

After running the second mile much faster than necessary, I thought I'd really ease it back over the last mile (something around 8:40-50). I pulled back on the reins until I felt like I was crawling. After a half mile, I was surprised to find I was around marathon pace. I finished at 7:50 and it felt REALLY slow.

I'm not sure what all of this means. My times during taper have all been faster than planned but I've felt good. I think my fitness is significantly improved over where I started this training cycle and that's why I'm on top of all my times this way. I'm taking confidence in this. But two questions weigh in the back of my mind. First, have I just been hammering my taper runs to give myself a false sense of security and effectively ruining the taper? Second, to date it's always been a question of endurance for me. Has my training given me the endurance to accomplish my goal? Since starting back running, my attributes have always been tilted heavily toward speed over endurance. Hopefully, I've remedied that somewhat.

Stay tuned to see what the answers to these questions are ....

Oh, should also throw out an arrogant thought that occurred to me this morning. While imagining the St. George finish, I was thinking of feeling strong and having a good finishing kick. It occurred to me that since I started racing a little over 18 months ago, no one has ever passed me at the finish of a race. My memory may be a bit clouded. So I might be forgetting an occasion to make myself feel better but I don't think so. I finished St. George really strong last year and I plan to do so again this year. No one will pass me down the home stretch!

One other point before dropping off. I'm cutting carbs right now prior to loading later in the week. I was hoping to smell ammonia this morning. I don't know the details or understand the physiology but here's a very rough outline. Complex carbohydrates are high octane fuel for your body. It's the preferred fuel and burns very clean. After burning through all carbs (simple and complex), your body shifts to a far less efficient method of providing fuel. It involves protein and fat as fuel. This process throws off ammonia as a waste product. Normally the ammonia is carried out of the body via urine. However when this process is in high use and urination isn't occurring, the ammonia will come through the sweat glands and out your pores in your sweat. When this happens, you can smell. So with my carb depletion program in effect, I figured a test of how well I was doing would be if I could smell ammonia today. I didn't. So I've either still got too many residual carbs or I didn't run far enough for the process to really get throwing off the ammonia. I'm guessing the latter.

PRE RUN
weight = 155.5#
water

POST RUN
water, multivitamin, Labrada ProV60 (protein shake)