Went to the pool twice this week, Monday and Thursday. Spent 1.5 hours each time. Thought I finally got it after managed to swim 20 laps in the pool last week but instead this week, I started to sink again and wasn’t comfortable for distance longer than 6 laps in the pool. I think I need to learn how to relax more in the water. Spent time working on my backstroke because that’s what the Total Immersion DVD taught for beginner. Floating on the back was not as easy as it seemed in the DVD.
On Tuesday, we did a lactate alternate run where we ran for .5 miles at our 10k/half marathon race pace and .5 mile recovery at a pace 30 secs slower. Running at half-marathon race pace is usually considered as a pace where lactate acid is at its equilibrium level and will start accumulating if the pace is any faster. Scott mentioned that by doing the lactate alternate run, that will allow improve our lactate threshold which is important for doing well in medium distance races. Did 3 repeats for 3 miles plus a mile each for warm up and cool down, so total 5 miles.
On Sat, we did a long run at 7:30 pace for 13 miles. http://connect.garmin.com/activity/146066261 Was supposed to run for 16 miles but somehow I didn’t feel too well on the run. It’s kind of weird because the course was easier than the long run a week before, last week we ran at a 6.54 min/mile pace for 12 miles around CP going up Harlem Hill, so that should be tougher course. This time the course went around the west side highway which flatter but still I found it harder. I felt my right knee started to hurt at mile 9 and after mile 13, I had to stop. Another plausible reason might be because I didn’t eat anything before the run and went out the night before, so maybe the lack of food and sleep might have caused me to hit the wall early.
Read some pages from this book “Brain Training for Runners” http://www.amazon.com/Brain-Training-Runners-Revolutionary-Endurance/dp/0451222326 at Barnes & Nobles on Sunday. This book is interesting where it disagrees with the traditional training method which emphasize on working on our lactate threshold level but instead it encourages runners to go all out in their training run. According to the book, to increase the speed, you will need to run at your max speed capacity and increase the distance each time. Fitzgerald’s motto is “train the brain and the rest will follow”. The brain control the firing of the neuron to our synapses in our muscle fiber, so all the training should involved increasing the sensitivity of our muscle fibers reaction to our brain. The book also talks a lot about this term “teleoanticipation” which means knowing intuitively just how much to hold back at the beginning of a maximal running effort to complete the effort without anything left in the tank, yet also without any decline in performance. Even our brain is working hard subconsciously in our run.
