This weekend was a pretty epic running weekend for me. I had a rare ’empty calendar’ on Saturday that I took advantage of to get an extra run in. As a happy coincidence, some of my ‘Cambie Marathoner‘ buddies were hitting the North Shore trails on Saturday in preparation for the upcoming Chuckanut 50K and let me tag along.
Sunday was my regular Running Room clinic long run.
Saturday: Trails!!!
My lover hate relationship with trails was confirmed on Saturday. While I don’t mind the ascent part of the trails as a trail neophyte, I’m a bit apprehensive about the descents.
This is due to a lack of experience and a lack of confidence—aka fear of falling. I liken it to when you are first learning to ski or snowboard and haven’t quite built the trust in your legs.
Photograph by Beppe De Lucio
Thankfully, I was running with a great group were patient with my plodding down the trails. They also offered me a lot of support and advice, and by the end of the day, I felt my confidence increasing, as well as my speed!
Sunday 18K
Sunday morning was the usual Cambie Running Room group run. This week, the 1/2. marathon clinic for the Pacific Road Runners First Half 1/2 Marathon finally got to the long run* segment of or training schedule with a scheduled run 18km. I turned a bit too early on the out and back and, although I tried to make up the extra distance, still fell a few hundred metres short. However, given my overall mileage for the week, I’m not too concerned about this.
For this training cycle, I’ve been following the 3/1 progression formula for Sunday runs: I run the first 3/4 of the distance at a slow pace (heart rate zone 2) and the last bit at my goal race pace. This gives me the benefit of LSD training, while teaching my body to run faster when tired.
However, as my legs were heavy after yesterdays’ trails, I decided to take it easy and run the entire distance keeping my heart rate in ‘zone 2’ to build my aerobic fitness and fat burning. I actually found myself having to pick up my pace a bit from my usually long run pace to keep my heart rate in the proper zone. I’m not sure if this is a sign of my training paying off, or that fact that it was a pretty crisp morning and my heart rate was lower as a result. Either way, I was happy.
To give to workout a bit of an extra benefit, I also ran the entire distance without using gels, to help train my body to burn fat more effectively and not be as reliant on carbohydrates. I’m not 100% convinced of the scientific proof of this training theory, but I felt that it couldn’t hurt to try it—especially give the relaxed pace I was running. As it turned out, I felt good throughout the run and didn’t miss not taking fuel along the way. If nothing else, I saved my body 200 or so calories.
*I consider anything over 10 miles/16km to be a ‘long run.Your Turn
How was your weekend? Did you get a long run in?
