Friday Ramble 07/15/22

This week: Putting a mediocre run into context, the $375 shoe question, and more summer running book recs.  

I’d like to say that I woke up feeling spry and chipper knowing I had my first tempo run of the training cycle on the calendar. Truthfully, my body felt tired and old. I’d also like to say that I arrived for the run with clear motivational intent, but I was stressed out and wary of reaching my goals. 

Sure enough, the run didn’t go according to plan. My heart rate was several beats faster than I wanted it to be, and my pace was 20-30 seconds slower than desired. 

Without even looking at my watch, I could sense things were off from the beginning. I was having a difficult time reaching my goal pace, and even more trouble sustaining it once I finally got there halfway through the run. 

The data merely confirmed that my body was working harder than normal with diminishing results. In a word, I’d describe the run as “mediocre.” Not a disaster by any stretch, but in no way was this a strong performance either.* 

*The run thoroughly confused my watch’s algorithm, which labeled the effort GREAT while also deducting points off what it calls Marathon Level. Another reason to never fully trust a machine over your intuition. 

An outing like this leaves a runner with two choices. They can either beat themselves up and waste time coming up with excuses, or they can analyze the run in a rational, detached manner and see if there are lessons to be learned. Let’s skip the excuses and go straight to the analysis.