Monday, August 4, 2008

How fast are we really going on our runs?

If you take a look at the right-hand column, you'll notice that most of my miles are recorded at around 8:10/ pace. That's an average, of course, but all in all, if I run a thousand miles, it's taking me 8,167 minutes, give or take.

This sounds slow. After all, every race I run is a lot faster than that, except my first marathon one where an injury forced me to jog-walk the last 8 miles of another.

But the numbers don't tell everything. At the 1.5 mile mark of most of my runs, my watch says 13:45 or slower without fail. That's 9:10 pace. Coming home, the same stretch is run in around 11:40. I assure you, I'm not trying to speed up. It's just muscle warm-up kicking in. So the 8:10 pace is often 20 minutes of 9-minute pace and 40 minutes of 7:50-8:00 pace. Sometimes I go faster, but that is my LSD pace...Pfitz is OK with it; Glover and HH like it, but I find myself feeling guilty sometimes. Long runs are the same way....8:25 for 90 minutes, then 8:00 for 90. Maybe faster at the end--never at the start.

If I wanted my log to be cooler, I suppose I could exclude warm-up miles and say: 8 miles...2 w/up, then 7:50 pace...at least THAT'S closer to marathon pace and I can see it in cyber-ink.

But the bottom line is that if you run to warm-up and include those miles in your time, your "mid-stream" time is faster, and that's what matters, not speeding up mile one. In races, we're all warmed up, hyped and psyched. Mile 1 is often too fast. But in training, mile one feels like I'm trying out a new knee while still asleep. I'm not warm, not psyched and there's no hype. My legs are out there, but my mind's still in bed.

5 comments:

Alexandra said...

Wooo! All the numbers!

go annie said...

Ron, I naturally tend to do my runs the same way. The first few miles are always slower, so I feel the overall average pace is slower than what I'm really doing for the bulk of the run.

Unless, I'm running with my friends and they just go out at one pace. So, I try to schedule my general aerobic runs with them and maintain a consistent pace the entire way.

I think if you mix it up a little that might add some variety and YES the numbers don't always tell the whole story! Don't they say that in accounting too? ;)

tww1980 said...

Yes......if I could just drop those first few miles in the AM......I could get back to my paces of 7 or 8 years ago....my first mile in the morning is usually a half asleep and stiff 8:10 if I start DH or 8:30 if I climb.......warmed up legs are the runners friend....why on some of my noon runs I have no problem starting out with a sub6 or high6 and doing an overall sub7 or sub630 3 miler at the advanced age of 48......lately I have had fun looking at old logs and seeing how "average" paces for a 10 miler 13-16 years ago would now qualify as a speed work 10 miler.

rundangerously said...

same for me!

the first mile on my regular out and back training runs along the post road is inevitably the slowest. then, running it as the last mile on the way home, it always comes in faster - even w/out pushing the pace.

Unknown said...

Yep, I'm the same way here when I start my runs between 5 and 5:45 am. The first 2km always come in around 5:30-5:40 pace without fail and they are the slowest kms of the morning run. Those same kms when I come back home (I usually do out and back courses) are anywhere from 20 seconds to even a minute faster.

Gregory (Pudov)