Hard/Easy

One reason I post my daily workouts is to demonstrate the value of the hard/easy principle. Now it might appear that the easy days aren't all that easy, but the pacing is different. In particular, I begin the easy runs at a snail's pace and continue at approximately 8:30 pace until after 3 miles or so, at which point I start hitting 7:50-8:00. But only if it feels good.

Yesterday, I did an indoor tempo run at 6:20-6:40 pace. It took a lot out of me. I'd already run around 10 miles a day at a fair pace, and the fan in our room broke, so I was overheating. But after 21 minutes (3.2 miles) I went outside and ran an easy mile to cool off.

But today, after some soreness the first mile, I ran a nice easy 7.8 miles at 8:10/mile pace(excluding the first mile, which I never count for pace, unless I'm really fresh and warmed-up) and felt strong and smooth. Hard/easy is the key to recovery.