After Tuesday’s 14 miles it was nice to check my training plan and see “50 to 70 minute Easy Run” on the schedule for Wednesday.
According to the McMillan Calculator, easy pace for me is currently 7:05 to 7:35 per mile. Kitted out in a brand new pair of Newton Gravitas (which I’m wearing as part of the Newton Running Wear Test Program), I set off into the sunshine with the intention of running for about an hour.
I found it difficult to keep it “easy” at first, but soon got into a nice comfortable groove and clicked off pretty consistent miles. No major issues tonight, although I do seem to have developed some sort of hot spot on my right foot. Weird…
Splits: 7:25 7:20 7:19 7:14 7:20 7:18 7:19 7:07 7:16
Day 4 of the marathon plan called for a 60 to 70 minute run with 30 to 40 minutes at “Steady State Pace” – which, according to the McMillan Calculator, is 6:14 to 6:25 per mile. I must admit, going into the workout I wasn’t totally confident of hitting the goal pace, but as always, decided to give it my best shot.
Greg McMillan describes the Steady-State Run as follows:
The Steady-State Run is one of the most beneficial types of workouts especially as you complete your base training and during the initial parts of your Stamina phase. The appropriate pace range for Steady-State Run Runs is between your 30k and half-marathon race pace. Your heart rate will likely be between 83 and 87% of maximum and the runs should last at least 25 minutes and can go as long as an hour and 15 minutes.
These are pretty tough efforts not because of the pace but because of the duration of running, so be prepared to increase your concentration to stay on pace and to take a good recovery day afterwards in order to reap the full benefits.
As per the workout instructions, I warmed up for a while (2.7 miles) and then proceeded to run 5 miles at steady-state pace:
Splits: 6:22 6:14 6:14 6:19 6:14
Just like Greg stated, it really took a lot of focus and determination to hit the required pace, but as you can see from the splits above, I made it.
I cooled down for just over a mile and to be honest couldn’t have run much more even if I wanted to. I did take a few minutes to do some stretches though…
Easy run tomorrow. I definitely need it!