As I touted my wisdom of doing shorter, more intense workouts in my last blog post, I quickly learned a valuable lesson. You can't go short and fast for too long and expect to be able to go long.
A buddy is about to leave on a trip to Africa to do the Safaricom Marathon in Kenya with Marathon Tours. Saturday morning was his last long run before departing on the trip. I agreed to accompany him on his last long run along A1a. I hadn't run long since the half marathon run as part of Florida 70.3 on May 15th. Not so long ago, I figured. With the treadmill speed work I been doing, I figured I was good to go. I ended up running about 12.5 miles. We ran at a reasonable 9 to 9 1/2 minute per mile pace. While I was feeling a little gassed the last mile or so, I made it through feeling fine.
Well, the next day, I slept in. I had insomnia the night before the run, so I figured I was making up for lost sleep. However, as the day wore on, I realized my leg muscles were sore. My legs needed some recovery time from that long run. It was like going from lifting 50 pound weights to lifting 100 pound weights. There is a price to be paid the day after a step up in effort. Thus, I may have to tweak my summer training schedule to keep within striking distance of a long run. Perhaps an occasional mid week 10K run to keep the long runs within reach. Meanwhile, I'll try to keep doing some faster stuff on the treadmill. The experiment of one continues.
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