w7d1 - unintentionally increasing distance

[yatesco]

Howdy - so that is week 7 day 1 (25mins run). 

This run was 0.2km (so 4.1km) further than my previous 25min run last Friday (3.9km), and it felt harder and much more out of control.

The thing is, while it is great increasing the mileage, it isn't actually what I intended, and I didn't particularly enjoy this run or feel 'settled'. It might be the fact I was listening to Us3 (Hand on the Torch) but I didn't intentionally increase my pace - I was aiming for the same pace as last time.

I am planning on increasing pace, and distance, but not yet. I want to focus the next three weeks run on building up stamina and maintaining the same pace as the duration increases.

I did only get about 4 hours sleep last night due to, well, er, let's just say the people in the room above me at the Premier Inn sounded like they were wrestling at 3.00 in the morning :-(, so it might have just been that, but I really didn't feel in control/in a rhythm in this run compared to the runs of the last few weeks.

And yeah, I get 0.2km is pretty much noise, but how it felt (much harder!) is much more what I am trying to control.

Does that make sense? What techniques do you all have for tracking pace?

[LisaRose74]

I went faster than I meant to last run and I find it hard to pace myself.  I think some runs you just don't feel in the zone and certainly your lack of sleep wouldn't help...

Like your tags by the way!

[yatesco Graduate in reply to LisaRose74]

Tags? .... Oh - those tags? Yeah - they got added automatically. And yep - I see what you mean now :-).

[JHutch Graduate]

If you have a smartphone, then there are loads of apps available that will help with telling you your average pace and split times.  Strava, MapMyRun, RunKeeper, FitBit, Endomondo etc., all have the ability to let you know your pace at timed intervals (every 5 minutes) or distance intervals (every 1km) or both, so you know where you're at.  The fact that you're saying you covered 4.2km makes me think you've already got something along those lines, so you might want to look for voice prompts.

Keep in mind that the average pace will be a little skewed if you start the app with your 5-minute warm-up though.

[JHutch Graduate in reply to JHutch]

Oh, and if you haven't already, see about claiming your good night guarantee for the disturbed sleep

[John_W Graduate Ambassador]

The lack of sleep is pretty much the explanation for the difficulty with this run.

At this early stage of your journey, little things like that can make  big difference.

Pacing? Given you run outdoors and you're a software engineer, I'm a little surprised you *not* all over running apps such as those mentioned above.

Or even a Garmin/TomTom! (Waay too early having said that).

[yatesco Graduate]

Thanks John and JHutch. I am indeed a geeky tech and yes, I have a bunch of apps. I also have the garmin vivoactive which is great! I do quite a bit of analysis post-run but I didn't find anything to help with the pace *in-run*. I didn't look very hard to be honest.

Given my cadence is quite consistent (around 147-150) and is higher on the 'over'-paced parts of the run, I might find some songs with the appropriate beats-per-minute and use that. I will also look into the beeping on time/distance as well.

And yes, now you mention it, I think the lack of sleep was the cause.

Thanks again all!