That was quite a workout. My body and legs felt pretty good this morning, and I was also pleased to see the temperature hovering around 50 degrees, with actual sun. In fact, it was so bright in some directions I almost wished I had worn sunglasses, except that mine tend to fog up and get covered in sweat, so I tend to prop them up on my forehead, which defeats the purpose.
In any event, the time change, plus getting to sleep a little later on account of it being the weekend, meant I had much better conditions for running than I’ve had in a few weeks. And I got off to a fine start, clocking in at 5:25 for the first three-quarters of a mile.
Then, as I got past the one-mile mark and approached the big hill, my memory finally fired and I remembered something I had struggled to recall last night. Earlier this week I had been reading Runner’s World online, and I saw an article about stride technique. Last night as I lay in bed, I was trying to remember the gist of the article, but couldn’t, and I forgot to look it up before heading out the door this morning. But, early into my run, I suddenly remembered the crux of the issue. Evidently African distance runners tend to run with a higher stride than their American counterparts, and the thinking is that by lifting their legs higher, they not only avoid overstriding, but they also get more power when they push off their foot, more spring in their step.
So, I decided to try this technique. It was a bit challenging as I tackled the hill, but my split at the 1.5-mile mark was about 12:10 or so, which is a personal best. It was hard to tell if I owed that to the change in form, or if it was mostly the good start. But then, as I hit the kept lifting my legs high over the next mile or so, I felt like I wasn’t straining myself so much, yet I was still running just as fast. Or faster, as it turned out. When I hit the split around the 2.5-mile mark, I clocked in at about 19:45, which is roughly forty-five seconds faster than my previous best for that point.
And it kept going like that. At around the 3.5-mile mark I was at 26:48 or so, another best. And I hit roughly four and a half miles in around thirty-five minutes. It really seemed like it was my day around this point. Even though my right shoe came untied around the three-mile mark, about a mile later, miraculously, the stray shoelace somehow tucked itself into the shoe. It looked like everything was breaking my way.
And then I got back to the big hill. I’m not sure if I just started to get tired, or if I started to break form, or what exactly happened. I do recall staring ahead at the bottom of the hill and suddenly having the length and height of the ascent confront me. I don’t think I’ve ever had that daunting feeling on my previous runs, though that’s probably because there’s usually a pedestrian or a car or something somewhere along the path that prevents me from seeing the totality of the climb and its full magnitude.
So, whether due to flagging energy or crumbling technique, or perhaps some subconscious fear, I think I started to slow. I was a little under forty-two minutes after cresting the hill around the 5.25-mile mark, which meant it took me closer to eight minutes to run that three-quarters of a mile that I had done in just under seven minutes earlier in my run. And I was at 50:10 when I checked my next split at roughly the 6.3 mile mark. I was definitely a couple of minutes or more behind my 10K time, though I was still in good shape, at least timewise, to break my goal of 1:28:00 for the 11-mile distance. I perhaps labored a little less over the next two and a half miles or so. I was essentially running two and a half loops of a circuit that’s just a little shy of four miles. I had run the first loop in a little under thirty minutes, and I was just over thirty minutes for the second loop.
But when I reached the big hill for the third time, I was feeling definite fatigue. Though I’ve run up that hill twice in a run on a few previous occasions, I had never done it three times in one run. My pace felt like it was slowing considerably, and I actually started to feel an ache in my stomach. I wasn’t sure what was causing it, but it was unpleasant.
I think I managed to get through that hill the third time on sheer willpower. I was determined to make it up the hill and to my next split at around the 9.25-mile mark by telling myself I wanted to try to make it there with sixteen minutes to spare. My reasoning was that sixteen minutes was enough time to run two miles at an eight-minute pace, and since I had maybe a mile and three-quarters at that point, it would give me plenty of cushion to meet my goal. When I hit my split, I had more like 15:15 to finish my run, but I knew that I was still on pace to meet my goal, especially since the worst of the hills was now behind me.
Still, I felt a bit like I was laboring. Even when I was on flat or gently downward-sloping terrain, it was hard to keep lifting my legs high. This technique definitely taxed my hamstrings more than I had been previously, and it seemed like my calf muscles were also getting a rigorous workout. I had one more sizable hill to climb just past the ten-mile mark. It was challenging, but at least at that point I knew I was nearing the finish and that I should really try to push myself and give all that I had left. I found I was able to maintain the high stride on the steeper downhill grades, which was good.
In the end, I was still able to push myself to finish strong, since I felt like I had something left in the tank, even though my legs felt more taxed. And I managed to clock in more than a minute under my goal, which felt good.
In retrospect, I probably should’ve tried the new technique on my short runs during the week, rather than implementing it shortly into a long run. But I’m notorious for not planning ahead and deciding to do new things in the middle of a run, whether it’s running farther (or substantially farther) than I originally planned, or trying a significantly different stride technique. Still, it will be interesting to see how it pans out over the next couple of weeks as I use this technique on some shorter runs and, presumably, develop the strength in the appropriate muscles to use this technique. At the very least, I did seem to notice some considerable improvement until my body began to protest.
Today’s stats:
- Distance run: 11.01 miles
- Time: 1:26:51
- Average speed: 7.6 mi/h
- Average pace: 7:54/mi
- Calories burned: 1633