Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Our short runs used to be our long runs

I saw the above quote on an Adidas ad for women's running shoes in Runner's World last month. I'm not exactly the target demographic but it stuck with me as a reminder how amazing the body is at translating incremental increases in workload into massive gains over time.

On the docket this week: four 6 mile easy runs as recovery for the legs and a renewed commitment to my strength routine. Really need to keep an eye on the pace and heart rate as it's becoming tougher and tougher to keep them down during the slower recovery runs. It's true that my slow runs used to be my fast runs but I'm not doing myself any good to go out and lay it down during a week/workout which is supposed to allow me to recover. It's a good sign that my fitness and pace are improving but I need to be mindful.

On another note, Brian has kept alive the fine tradition of talking me into things that I'd never think of doing myself. Our company has entered a corporate team in the Vancouver SunRun (North America's second largest 10K!) and I had planned on running it for fun. It's a HUGE race that draws about 50, 000 people! It's really way too crowded to think about putting up a scorching fast time and you probably end up running about 11-12 km dodging people throughout the course but it's super fun to be involved in an event that big.
On to Brian's 'brainwave': He calls me this morning and sells me on the idea of running from my house to the SkyTrain, taking the SkyTrain down to the event, running the 10K, taking the SkyTrain back and running home.
Distance from my house to the SkyTrain station: 7.2 miles according to Google Maps. In about 5 minutes he turned a leisurely run with 49,999 running partners into a 20 miler.
Gotta love it.

2 comments:

runninggunner said...

Boo yeah!!! Glad you're down. It should be a fun filled day. At least to this .0000000001% of the population.

jameson said...

it is pretty nuts how are perceptions change as our fitness progresses. I rememeber less than 3 years ago I thought 2 hours on the bike was enternity... now I am just getting warmed.