Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Beauty of the morning run


Thank a vet today.

Reminded this morning of one of the best benefits of the early morning run, sunrises. This mornings was spectacular. Almost missed it. I was headed home, with the sunrise off to my left. The reds against the almost complete cloud cover was amazing. The clouds had the swirly look of snow clouds. Not cold enough for that, but made for a great sunrise. Bet as a runner I've seen more sunrises than most people.

Got up at 3:30 this morning for my speed workout. Got distracted reading about tapers and didn't make it out the door until almost 5 am. Pulled out my log books from prior years to find what taper I used for my Boston qualifier at Rocket City in 2004. Two weeks, with lots of rest and not much running. I ran the Mid-South Marathon in Wynne, Arkansas 5 weeks earlier.

Googled "best marathon taper" and got Runners World, Ten Things to Avoid in a taper, McMillan, Pfitzinger , and Letsrun. I'm going with 2 weeks of taper. I've tried 3 weeks in the past and thats way to long. Really like the idea of running the day before the marathon, its worked for me in the past. Typically only a couple of miles. Just enough to loosen up the legs.

This mornings workout is a modification of the speed workout from the Rocket City training. It was 3 x 800, 600, 600 at 5k pace. I did 6 x 800 meters instead with equal recovery a little quicker than 10k pace. Pretty easy workout and total of 7.1 miles for the morning.

2 comments:

Lisa said...

I like the early daylight but I sure do miss it after work.
We watch the sunrise on the spin bikes this morning.

Jill Ann said...

I agree on the taper...I usually only do 2 weeks as 3 weeks makes me feel like a potato standing at the start line!