Week 5, Session Three: 11 mile interval run

Wednesday, June 16, 2021
Orlando, Florida
76 degrees Farenheit (24.4C), 98% humidity, overcast
38 days to Red Top Roaster race

Today's run was 11 miles (18 km) at an average pace of 7:40 per mile (4:46 per km). I was wearing another one of my favorite pair of shoes, the Saucony Endorphin Speed v1 in the citrus colorway:

One of the main things I learned from the book Advanced Marathoning was the difference between running a race versus racing a race. It has nothing to do with your absolute speed, but rather your relative effort. If you are pushing your own limits, then you are racing. If you are cruising, regardless of how fast or slow you may be going, you are just running in the race. In order to prepare for racing, you have to structure your training in such way to maximize both your fitness and your freshness when you arrive to the starting line. While beyond the scope of this post, this idea generally means training the variety of systems of the body that will ultimately dictate your pace. This brings me to today's workout, which was an interval workout: 2x1600m, 2x1200m, 2x1000m, and 1x800m. I will explain the purpose of this type of workout in a later post.