LSD

Been a couple of days since I posted last, but I haven't been sitting on my ass all weekend. OK, I haven't JUST been sitting on my ass, I did get some exercise in. Before going out to the theatre with friends on Friday (and man, how beautiful did my wife look??), I got in about 40 minutes of walking with Aaron. Tried to go to the track for some nice, flat terrain, but apparently some kind of soccer event was going on. I hate soccer. For real. But this isn't the time or place for that discussion. I was supposed to meet Aaron at the track, but I didn't see him there and when I went by his house, he wasn't there either. So I figured I would just go home and get in a couple of quick miles. I have to drive past the park to get home from the track, so I had the brilliant idea of using the trails at the park for a quick workout. As I'm pulling up, who do I see walking towards me? Aaron. So we walked together for a little bit, before meeting at the show, but I have to tell you, I'm not sure how much I like the park trails. They are very hilly. Not big gradual hills, but they seem to be constantly rolling. That would be OK, but they don't seem to be very level either. They seem to constantly be slanting one direction or another. On the plus side, though, it is a woody trail, and you never know what you might see. There was a friendly cat that followed us around for a while, and at one point, a red fox came shooting out of the weeds and ran down the trail in front of us. Not everyday you see that!

Yesterday, I had planned on getting in one of the workouts that are going to be the cornerstones of my marathon training - the LSD day. My thought is that during the later stages of a marathon, your mind starts playing tricks on you while your body cannonballs into a catatonic stupor, so I should get myself prepared for that by exercising while using potent hallucinogens. Seriously. OK, not really. LSD is short for long slow distance. The long slow distance day does a couple of things for you. The main thing is does is psychological. As a first time marathoner, chances are my race will take somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 hours. Just as I need to train my body to keep functioning that long, I also need to train my mind. Because short of injury, the mind will almost always give out before the body. From a physical standpoint, the body needs to get used to being in motion for that long, and needs to adapt to providing energy over a sustained period. I think that any running program needs to combine 1) shorter runs at faster than normal pace, 2) ideal pace running, and 3) long, slow runs at a pace that is a couple of minutes per mile slower than your normal pace.

So that was the plan for yesterday. 4 to 5 miles of nice easy walking. I decided to use the track because it would be easier to keep track of my pace. I knocked out the first couple of laps at about 4 minutes each, putting me on 16 minute mile pace. It seemed a little fast to me, but I guess my mind was still thinking about my running times from last year. Most of the races I ran were at about a 10 minute mile pace, so I thought that a 16 pace was plenty slow. But I think that if I am walking, 16 was a little fast. I ended up doing 3 1/2 miles in 56 minutes. Still a pretty good workout for me, but not what I intended to do. It was a good learning experience, though, because next time I know what type of pacing I need. If I can drop it down in the 18-19 range, I should be good.

That brings up a discussion between whether to train by time or distance. Maybe I will bring that up tomorrow. I may do some strength training today, because I'm not sure if I will get a chance to walk today since Kary has to work. Speaking of Kary, did I mention how unbelievable she looked Friday? I definitely married over my head.....